Posts by Cassius

This thread is going to become a primary resource for arguments about absence of pain, so I want to include here one of the major sections by DeWitt bearing on this, from Chapter 12 of his book under the subheading "The Unity of Pleasure":

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Though we certainly fall short of possessing the whole argument of Epicurus, there is ample evidence upon which to construct the skeleton of a case. The Feelings, as usual, are the criterion. It may be recalled how he proved life itself to be the greatest good by pointing out that the greatest joy is associated with the escape from some dreadful destruction. By a similar argument, even if not extant, it could be shown that the recovery of health is a positive pleasure when the individual has recently survived a perilous illness. It would be a positive pleasure also to be freshly relieved from the fear of death and the gods through the discovery of the true philosophy.

To substantiate this drift of reasoning it is not impossible to quote a text: "The stable condition of well-being in the flesh and the confident hope of its continuance means the most exquisite and infallible of joys for those who are capable of figuring the problem out." [Usener 68]

This passage marks a distinct increase of precision in the analysis of pleasure. Its import will become clear if the line of reasoning already adumbrated be properly extended: let it be granted that the escape from a violent death is the greatest of joys and the inference must follow that the possession of life at other times cannot rank greatly lower. Similarly, if the recovery from a dangerous illness be a cause for joy, manifestly the possession of health ought to be a joy at other times. Nevertheless the two pleasures differ from one another and it was in recognition of the difference that Epicurus instituted the distinction between kinetic and static pleasures. The difference is one of intensity or, as Epicurus would have said, of condensation. At one time the pleasure is condensed, at another, extended. In other words the same pleasure may be either kinetic or static. If condensed, it is kinetic; if extended, it is static.

There is a catch to this reasoning, however; it holds good only "for those who are capable of figuring the problem out." This marks Epicurus as a pragmatist, insisting upon the control of experience, including thought. His reasoning about kinetic and static pleasures is sound, but human beings do not automatically reason after this fashion; they fail to reason about the matter at all. Although they would spontaneously admit the keenest joy at recovery from wounds or disease, they forget about the blessing of health at other times. Hence it is that Epicurus insists upon the necessity of being able to reason in this way. Moreover, this reasoning must be confirmed by habituation. The same rule applies here as in the case of "Death is nothing to us." It is not enough to master the reasons for so believing; it is also necessary to habituate one's self to so believe. [Diogenes Laertius, 10.124] This is pragmatism.

There is also another catch to this line of reasoning. The conclusion clashes with the teaching of Aristippus and Plato and it also violates the accepted usage of language. It was not usual to call the possession of health a pleasure and still less usual to call freedom from pain a pleasure. It was this objection that Cicero had in mind when he wrote: "You Epicureans round up people from all the crossroads, decent men, I allow, but certainly of no great education. Do such as they, then, comprehend what Epicurus means, while I, Cicero, do not?" [Cicero, De Finibus, 2.4.12-13] The common people of the ancient world, however, for whom Platonism had nothing attractive, seem to have accepted Epicurean pragmatism with gladness. Cicero, being partial to the aristocratic philosophy and having no zeal to promote the happiness of the multitude, chose to sneer.

The irritation which Cicero simulates in the above passage was beyond doubt genuine with those from whom the argument was inherited. They had been nettled by the phraseology of Epicurus, who was mocking Plato. The words "those who are capable of figuring the problem out" are a parody of Plato's Timaeus 40d, where the text reads "those who are incapable of making the calculations" and the reference is to mathematical calculations of the movements of the celestial bodies, which "bring fears and portents of future events" to the ignorant. Baiting the adversary was a favorite sport of Epicurus.

Epicureans at a later time were in their turn subjected to incessant baiting by Stoic opponents, and it may have been these who tried the reduction to the absurd by means of a ridiculous example. If those who are not in a state of pain are in a state of pleasure, "then the host who, though not being thirsty himself, mixes a cocktail for a guest is in the same state of pleasure as the guest who is thirsty and drinks the said cocktail." [Cicero, De Finibus, 2.5.17]

Cicero, however, had his tongue in his cheek and knew that this was mere dialectical sparring, intended rather to disconcert the opponent than to refute him. He was partial to the New Academy and to Stoicism, both of which tended to turn argumentation into a game and thus make it an end in itself. They could not fail to be intolerant of the procedures of pragmatism, of which action is the primary object and not logomachy.

This extension of the name of pleasure to freedom from fear and pain was not the sole achievement of the new analysis. In popular thought, the correctness of which Plato assumed, pleasures were classified according to the parts of the body affected, eating, drinking, sexual indulgence, philosophical thinking. In respect also of this conventional classification Epicurus exhibited finer discrimination. He not only discerned that the pleasure associated with one organ is brief and intense while that associated with other parts is moderate and extended but also observed that certain pleasures, like that of escaping a violent death, affect the whole organism.

The next step in this new analysis was to declare that this fact of extension or intension was of no fundamental importance. The high value assigned to this principle is indicated by its promulgation as Authorized Doctrine 9: "If every pleasure were alike condensed in duration and associated with the whole organism or the dominant parts of it, pleasures would never differ from one another." Positively stated, the meaning would be that pleasure is always pleasure; it is of no consequence that some pleasures are associated with the mind, others with the stomach, and others with other parts, or that some affect the whole organism and others only a part, or that some are brief and intense, others moderate and extended. In other words, it makes no difference that some pleasures are static and others kinetic. Pleasure is a unit. This unity could be expressed in ancient terminology by saying that all pleasure was a kind of motion, kinesis or motio, the ancient equivalent of reaction.

To put the colophon upon this topic it should be added that three Authorized Doctrines, Nos. 8, 9, and 10, deal with pleasure and all three imply the quality of unity. The eighth stresses the fact that the evil attaches solely to the consequences; all pleasures are alike in being good: "No pleasure is evil in itself but the practices productive of certain pleasures bring troubles in their train that by many times outweigh the pleasures themselves."

The ninth Doctrine has been quoted above. In it the item about "condensed pleasure" was pounced upon by Damoxenus of the New Comedy as a good cue for merrymaking; quite aptly he allowed a cook to dilate upon it.[Fragment 2, pages 349-350 (Kock)] Some five centuries afterward the frivolous Alciphron testified to the longevity of the theme by assuming it to be still good for a laugh.[Usener, 432]

The tenth Doctrine, last of the three, serves to shift all ethical condemnation from pleasures themselves to the consequences: "If the practices productive of the pleasures of profligates dispelled the fears of the mind about celestial things and death and pains and also taught the limit of the desires, we should never have fault to find with profligates, enjoying pleasures to the full from all quarters, and suffering neither pain nor distress from any quarter, wherein the evil lies." Such declarations afforded to enemies of Epicurus a means of besmirching his name, but he was absolutely honest; he did not evade the logical implications of his principles; he flaunted them. By disposition he was a teaser; he drew enjoyment from the squirming of the piously orthodox.

A variation of the same teaching appears in an isolated saying. "I enjoy the fullness of pleasure living on bread and water and I spit upon the pleasures of a luxurious diet, not on account of any evil in these pleasures themselves but because of the discomforts that follow upon them." [Usener, 181] The net effect of these pronouncements is to put all pleasures in a single class, all being good, irrespective of extension or condensation or of the organ affected or of approval or disapproval, which attach only to consequences. This is an instance where Epicurus exhibited deeper insight than Plato in the latter's own field, discerning the one in the many.

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Just thought I would add here too that since this thread started we've come across a long discussion of "frugality" by Cicero in Tusculan Disputations giving the word "frugality" a much more expansive meaning than we probably would today:

III-VIII.¶

And from these considerations we may get at a very probable definition of the temperate man, whom the Greeks call σώφρων, and they call that virtue σωφροσύνην, which I at one time call temperance, at another time moderation, and sometimes even modesty; but I do not know whether that virtue may not be properly called frugality, which has a more confined meaning with the Greeks; for they call frugal men χρησίμους, which implies only that they are useful: but our name has a more extensive meaning; for all abstinence, all innocency, (which the Greeks have no ordinary name for, though they might use the word ἀβλάβεια, for innocency is that disposition of mind which would offend no one,) and several other virtues, are comprehended under frugality; but, if this quality were of less importance, and confined in as small a compass as some imagine, the surname of Piso would not have been in so great esteem. But as we allow him not the name of a frugal man (frugi), who either quits his post through fear, which is cowardice; or who reserves to his own use what was privately committed to his keeping, which is injustice; or who fails in his military undertakings through rashness, which is folly; for that reason the word frugality takes in these three virtues of fortitude, justice, and prudence, though it is indeed common to all virtues, for they are all connected and knit together. Let us allow, then, frugality itself to be another and fourth virtue; for its peculiar property seems to be, to govern and appease all tendencies to too eager a desire after anything, to restrain lust, and to preserve a decent steadiness in everything. The vice in contrast to this is called prodigality (nequitia). Frugality, I imagine, is derived from the word fruge, the best thing which the earth produces; nequitia is derived (though this is perhaps rather more strained, still let us try it; we shall only be thought to have been trifling if there is nothing in what we say) from the fact of everything being to no purpose (nequicquam) in such a man; from which circumstance he is called also Nihil, nothing. Whoever is frugal, then, or, if it is more agreeable to you, whoever is moderate and temperate, such a one must of course be consistent; whoever is consistent, must be quiet; the quiet man must be free from all perturbation, therefore from grief likewise: and these are the properties of a wise man; therefore a wise man must be free from grief.

I've not yet made up my mind to do this, but it appears that neither Joshua nor Don are available for this weekend's podcast. While we wait on Joshua's return before going further in Tusculan Disputations, I am thinking of using this thread of comments on Episode 295 and just recording a commentary as I pick out some to talk about on the general topic of Plutarch's criticisms, especially on "absence of pain" (I will omit the names of the post writers).

So if you're considering adding a comment to this thread, please do, as that will give us more material with which to work. And to repeat, if I do this at all I'll pull out only the thrust of the comments and I won't be associating them with names of posters (other than probably Don as he made his points on the first episode).

Quote from Rolf

Regardless of all the abstract reasoning I’m engaging in while trying to understand this point,

Well you may have found something to say that I disagree with! I don't think your comments constitute abstract reasoning (with the implication that there's something improper about them). I think the questions you are asking are the most practical possible. If good answers do not exist to them, then Epicurean philosophy is worse than worthless.

I can't imagine much that would be worse than a philosophy that would appear to argue that the goal of life is to obsess over being anesthetized from all pain, and living with the minimum pleasure possible to sustain you. In fact, that's exactly what I strongly criticize the Stoics, Buddhists, and others for in essence advocating.

Respectfully I don't think I would reach that same conclusion myself. I suppose we have another issue with the limitations of hypotheticals, but I think I can state pretty broadly that if in fact I found a poem to be one of the most enjoyable I had ever read, I don't think I would wish that that experience had never happened to me just because I later found out that the poem was AI-generated. I'm not saying that finding out it was AI generated would not have major implications for future conduct, but presuming that the poem did in fact cause me great enjoyment and that I could continue to read the poem in the future with enjoyment and with no necessary harmful effects, I would not wish not to have had the experience.

I know I know that it will be objected BUT THERE WILL BE HARMFUL EFFECTS but I do not at least at this point believe it makes sense from an Epicurean perspective (no fate / no necessity) to say that overridingly harmful effects will necessarily occur simply from the fact that a particular poem is AI generated. More would be needed to reach that conclusion.

I feel sure others will have different perspectives and I'd like to hear them.

Thanks for bringing that up Pacatus. Let me ask you this:

And if in fact someone posted a poem that so appealed to you that you in fact found it to be one of the most enjoyable poetic experiences of your life to read it, would you then wish that you had never read it if you found out later it had been generated by AI?

I think there's a problem related to what Rolf is asking about that needs our best response. Here's an effort to describe that problem and give a provisional answer:

"If it's so easy, Epicurus, to caricature your philosophy to make it seem like the opposite of pleasure, don't you think you have a problem with the way you're saying it?"

There's a section of Frances Wright's chapter ten, especially the part I underlined below, that makes a similar point, where she has Epicurus say:

“Zeno, in his present speech, has rested much of the truth of his system on its expediency; I, therefore, shall do the same by mine. The door to my gardens is ever open, and my books are in the hands of the public; to enter, therefore, here, into the detail or the expounding of the principles of my philosophy, were equally out of place and out of season. ‘Tell us not that that is right which admits of evil construction; that that is virtue which leaves an open gate to vice.’ This is the thrust which Zeno now makes at Epicurus; and did it hit, I grant it were a mortal one. From the flavour, we pronounce of the fruit; from the beauty and the fragrance, of the flower; and in a system of morals, or of philosophy, or of whatever else, what tends to produce good we pronounce to be good, what to produce evil, we pronounce to be evil."

I think part of the answer to this question would include referring to VS29. (Bailey) “In investigating nature I would prefer to speak openly and like an oracle to give answers serviceable to all mankind, even though no one should understand me, rather than to conform to popular opinions and so win the praise freely scattered by the mob.”

I don't think Epicurus expected that his letter to Menoeceus would survive isolated from his other ethical works on the End, and his works on the Canon and On Nature and so forth. When he wanted to distill his ethical philosophy down to its core essence, he chose to include in PD03 the key fundamental point which is not stated so bluntly in the Letter to Menoecus: PD03. The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once.

If the Principal Doctrines had survived and the Letter to Menoeceus had not, I don't think we'd be in nearly the same situation we are now. We'd still have knowledge that absence of pain is a crucial concept, but we wouldn't be dealing with the confusion caused by saying in isolation that when all pain is gone we have no need for pleasure. That statement makes sense only when you realize that it means that we have no further need for more pleasure because our experience is already full of pleasures. We haven't gotten rid of pleasure along with pain, we'll filled our experience with all our own personal combination of those mental and physical experiences that everyone recognizes as pleasure, along with those other experiences of health and stability that everyone doesn't but should also recognize as pleasure.

If you keep PD03 firmly in mind as the starting point, and you realize that it's being stated as the third most important thing to know in the whole philosophy, more important even than a statement that Pleasure is the goal of life, it's easier to see that there's something special about this formulation which has to be treated like an axiom never to be contradicted. With PD03 in mind you know that pleasure and pain cannot coexist in the same space, and that no more pleasure can be added when all pain has been removed.

And if you know anything about the major philosophical debates of the age, you know that this addresses the major objection to holding Pleasure to be the greatest good that had been stated by the opposing philosophers: that pleasure can always be made better by adding more, and that therefore pleasure can never be properly viewed as full or complete. You don't need to be told that Pleasure is desirable, because no one in their right mind would assert that (even though the Stoics and others moved in that direction). What you needed most of all to be told is that there is an answer to the anti-Pleasure logic problem, and that the answer to the logic problem is that Pleasure when viewed as "Absence of Pain" cannot be improved - there is no "better" than can be reached by adding more pleasure when your experience is already completely full of pleasure because you have removed all non-pleasurable experiences.

This is the key philosophical answer which Epicurus' formulations was targeted at explaining. Epicurus was aware that he could and would be misconstrued and misrepresented, but he also knew that nothing will satisfy that type of person. The most important thing was to provide the key for those who are capable of figuring the problem out. No doubt in other places he did explain the issues in more plain and simple terms, but it appears confusing to us because from Epicurus' own hands only one letter on ethics and a list of key doctrines survives.

That's one way I would begin to answer someone who legitimately asks Why didn't he state this more clearly and why does this have to be so confusing?

It's definitely easy to see why Cicero and Plutarch would come up with this argument, because it can be made to look ridiculous due to lack of context. More troubling for me than that they chose the argument is that they got so far with it. No doubt these are the kinds of questions that the book(s) on the "goal" from which Cicero was quoting would have cleared up these issues, so their loss is particularly damaging.

Dave:

I can offer this:

I don't perceive them as arguing about "the degree two which science and faith can coexist." ("Looking further, apparently they did initially have different views on the degree to which science and faith could coexist.) I think they both defer to "science" and disparage faith (belief without evidence) and on that I think we all agree.

The video to which I point is here:

The video description says this:

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Krauss's latest book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, explains the scientific advances that provide insight into how the universe formed. Krauss tackles the age-old assumption that something cannot arise from nothing by arguing that not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing.

The underlined point I think illustrates what I am arguing against, and I listened to enough to hear them debating whether the start was "completely nothing" or not. From an ordinary philosophical understanding of words, it is ridiculous to troll people with the idea that something not only "can" but "will always" arise from nothing.

I don't have time to listen to the rest of the video (though I would like to) but that's already enough to establish that if things can come from or go to nothing, then the rest of Epicurean common sense physics, and indeed all predictability of science or rational logic leading to confidence in knowledge, would be eliminated.

Krauss is something of scientist and if I recall as you wade through the video that he backs off the accusation that he's talking about "absolutely nothing" -- but this is exactly the kind of sensationalism that "regular people" aren't going to be able to navigate through. And those are the ones I am most concerned about, not about those who find this all very amusing as apparently Krauss does. In this first part of the video that's playing in the background I think I hear in Dawkins' voice that he too takes this seriously and doesn't really appreciate Krauss' attitude (even though it may result in more book sales for them both),

Quote from Rolf

2) I had absolutely zero knowledge of Epicureanism before coming here. My confusion here does not stem from the mainstream false interpretations of Epicurus. I hadn’t read Cicero or Plutarch, nor had I read any inaccurate books on Epicurean philosophy. While people like Cicero and Plutarch seemed to have wilfully distort Epicurus’ words, my questions about the philosophy come from a place of organic confusion. This matters because it means that I’m not struggling to break away from some prior false interpretation of the texts, but instead I’m trying to understand things from a fairly neutral standpoint. Your argument seems to focus a lot on disproving Cicero and Plutarch’s falsehoods, which I already disagree with, rather than independently clarifying the Epicurean view.

Yes I follow you and I think that's important. It's a remark that is kind of like Dave's perfectly correct comment to the effect that every quantum scientist is not a mystic in disguise.

All it takes is reading the letter to Menoeceus without any prior or other reading whatsoever and you're thrown headlong into this confusion.

That's because if we start and stop with that letter we are taking Epicurus' words out of context, and not accounting for the circumstance that Epicurus was writing for students who wanted summaries to make things easier to remember, but who were otherwise very familiar and had intimate access to his full views. For example, PD03 about the limit of the quantity of pleasure, and their inability to co-exist (and therefore there are only two options) is not spelled out in the letter to Menoeceus, but is essential background to avoid this confusion about "absence of pain."

You're not more confused than most other new readers. You're doing what most new readers fail to do -- rather than walk away from the obvious omissions from the letter and accepting apparent contradictions or even mysticism, you're seeing how that interpretation makes no sense and that it's essential to bring the full picture into focus so that this part can be understood.

Quote from Rolf

Why do we seek variation of pleasure? Why should we seek variation of pleasure?

Because nature tells us that all pleasure is pleasing and that is why it is called pleasure.

Quote from Rolf

How would you respond to confusion about absence of pain in a single clear and concise paragraph?

Epicurus considered "absence of pain" to be a philosophical term which describes the condition of any part of the body or mind, or of one's life as a whole, from which pain is absent. We need this general term because everyone's circumstances are different, but we still need a logical and understandable objective. Once you identify that all of life resolves into two feelings (pleasure and pain), and you choose to view your experience as a whole as a jar to be filled, it becomes logically obvious that the most desirable life possible is that in which the jar is filled with pleasures. Stating that your goal is "absence of pain" is the same as stating that your goal is "pleasure." Neither term implies that you are limiting your choice of pleasures to a particular physical or mental activity, and you are certainly not going to limit it to a subsistence minimum when more desirable pleasures are available. All pleasures are desirable, but some pleasures are more desirable than others. The proper goal is to set out to fill your experience (your jar of life) with the most pleasant combination of pleasures possible for you. Consideration of "natural and necessary" desires does not undermine this viewpoint, but supports it. Every step along the way of pursuing a jar full of pleasures, this consideration provides a rule of thumb that is not absolute but provides guidance as to which choices are most likely to lead to more pain than pleasure.

Quote from Rolf

hanks for your reply Cassius! Would it be accurate to say then that once our basic (natural necessary) desires are satisfied, it is no longer pain or lack that drives us to pleasure but pleasure itself?

I feel this sort of relates to the question I posed a little while ago about why we should pursue unnecessary desires if necessary desires are enough. Epicurus was, among other things, a researcher of human behaviour. Why is it that we still pursue superfluous pleasurable sensations once we have reached the limit of pleasure (absence of pain)?

To be very clear, I don’t disagree with the conclusions here. But the fact that the clock displays the correct time is not enough for me - I must know how it ticks!

That's the best possible attitude Rolf. I've seen so many people start and then drop the study of Epicurus, and I am convinced this is the main problem. Most people don't seem willing to question the authorities on how the "authorities" say Epicurus' view of happiness works, so they only hear an upside down version and give up trying to make sense of it to find out how it really ticks. They get tired of anesthesia, which is all that is offered in the word "tranquility," and they eventually walk way.

And as I have said before, if I thought what your question suggests about "absence of pain" was the correct interpretation of Epicurus, I would shut down this forum in an instant.

Would it be accurate to say then that once our basic (natural necessary) desires are satisfied, it is no longer pain or lack that drives us to pleasure but pleasure itself?

To this I would say that it is ALWAYS pleasure that drives us to pursue pleasure. Pain can be viewed as the absence of pleasure just like pleasure is the absence of pain.

Your question displays exactly why there is so much fixation on the "natural and necessary" categorization. People act as if Epicurus said that all you need is a little air and bread and water and you ARE living like a god. What he said was that HE was able to compete with the gods even if that was all HE had, but what HE was suggesting HE could do does not mean that any particular Tom, Dick, Benjamin, or Mohammed on the street would see the same result with only bread and water and air.

In the case of Epicurus, HE was able to say that it as a greatly happy day for HIM even when he was dying a very painful death because HE could stack against that pain the memory and thoughts of what HE had accomplished and experienced in HIS life to that point. Would you compare the happiness that you have experienced from philosophy to date (including your period of anti-natalism) as such an ecstatic experience that you would whoop and holler and exclaim that this memory mad it worth staying alive even as your kidneys were exploding? Would a child in war zone reasonably be able to say that with only bread and water and air he was living a life worthy of the gods?

I don't think so, and I don't think Epicurus would say so.

Why is it that we still pursue superfluous pleasurable sensations once we have reached the limit of pleasure (absence of pain)?

Because all pleasure is desirable, and none of it is superfluous as long as we are able to experience it.  As we have been discussing recently the way Metrodorus stated it is that the reason we need no more pleasure after we reach "absence of pain" is that there is no more room for those pleasures in our lives, because our experience is already full of pleasures! It's not that additional pleasure is not desirable, but that under the hypothetical we do not have the capacity to experience any additional pleasure. And that's because our experience is already full of pleasures of every kind, mental and bodily, and there is no "empty spot" - no extra time or attention - into which to inject new pleasurable experiences.

Is your experience full to the brim when you have a little water and air and water? Mine is not, and I hope to live a significant number of additional time and experience more pleasures that I can reasonably hope to experience.

In the case of Epicurus on his last day, given his circumstances and what he had accomplished, calling yourself happy is very reasonable, because Epicurus understood what he had accomplished and how his time wsa coming to an end because his body was wearing out. But are you in your 20's satisfied that all you need for the rest of your life is bread, water, air, sleep ---- and rinse and repeat that cycle and nothing else for the next 80 years?

Of course not! You want to experience all the mental and bodily pleasures that your particular situation (health, abilities, etc.) allows you to experience! Why would any reasonable person choose to look at everything above a subsistence level of existence as "superfluous"!?!?

But that's exactly what the "frenemies" of Epicurus have succeeded in making you think is Epicurean philosophy. It's detestable that this has become an accepted manner of thinking.

This now commonly accepted view of Epicurus (that he deprives us of singing and dancing and having fun) is an ATTACK on Epicurus. Yet many defenders of Epicurus have ACCEPTED this sarcastic argument of Plutarch and tried to turn it into a strength!

What dolts they are -- Plutarch and Cicero both gave them enough credit to think that any person of normal common sense hearing their argument would run like the wind from a philosophy that drains all joy and delight out of life. But what happened? Plutarch's and Cicero's sarcasm was over the years EMBRACED (after the true Epicureans had been suppressed) to the point where it has now become the majority modern accepted interpretation of Epicurus!!!

To me the antidote starts back with tracing back where these arguments came from in the first place, and why they proved effective.

Epicurus was always focused on PLEASURE, and he made very clear that his definition of pleasure includes all common pleasures. Full stop - no ranking of pleasures on an absolute scale as some "always" better than others.

The major innovation that Epicurus added to the view of pleasure was to expand it to include all mental and bodily experiences that are not painful. And he did so for a reason that is the very opposite of those who despair about life and about children and who chose to focus on suffering.

Epicurus said that life itself is desirable and pleasurable, given how short it is, and that we should view it as our most valuable possession and make the most out of it that we can.

But does that mean that all any random mystical anti-natalist has to do is drug himself into a stupor to the point he doesn't feel anything mental or bodily, and by that action he becomes as happy as a god?

Heck no - such a person remains the same miserable creature he was before he drugged himself out of existence.

It is possible for someone (like Epicurus) to compete with a god, even in austere conditions, because as Epicurus said he found his joy in the study of nature, and in Epicurus' case he knew what he had accomplished. His friends were numbered in whole cities and as a result of his work he had come to be living in what has to be interpreted as relatively wealthy circumstances. People who are destitute don't own multiple properties and multiple slaves and have admiring women and students and friends surrounding and supporting them up to their last breath.

So the ultimate proof of the error of the view Plutarch has promoted is that EPICURUS HIMSELF DID NOT LIVE LIKE THAT! Epicurus was as capable as any philosopher of embracing hypothetical examples, and using hyperbole such as living on bread and water, to dramatize and illustrate philsophical points.

But how did Epicurus actually live? All you have to do is read his will to realize that Epicurus did NOT live a life from which singing and dancing and joy and delight had been banished.

But that interpretation of "abence of pain" is an argument Plutarch thinks some people are stupid enough to fall for. And the bitter truth is that people have proved that they are far more stupid that Plutarch gave them credit for being! Plutarch much be laughing in his grave to realize that he's helped destroy Epicurean philosophy - not by convincing people that it deprives them of pleasure they could otherwise have, but by convincing them that Epicurean philosophy isn't about pleasure at all!

Is she supposed to have ringworm??

Quote from Rolf

To put my confusion in other terms: I feel I have all the pieces scattered in my mind, but am having trouble putting them together concisely and cleanly.

Bless you Rolf because you have just illustrated how much of a problem this is and how many people are finding it hard to "get it" in regard to this issue. You've been here for months and been asking questions and reading and you are extremely quick and yet this still bothers you.

Sometimes I think that some of us don't appreciate nearly enough the extent of this problem.

There is nothing more important we can do than hammer on this issue over and over again.

I expect that what you are doing is what most normal people are doing in the brief period that they entertain Epicurus before discarding him.

They take "absence of pain" in a way that is to them literal - they feel pain of body or mind, and they think that Epicurus means "find any way possible to anesthetize yourself from those pains and you automatically assume to the bliss of the gods."

That's what I hear when I read:

If the animals have satiated all of their desires/removed all of their pain, should they not sit around and do nothing at that point?

Not if their goal is the fullness of pleasure in all of the many ways that are accessible to us. No one ever said that all pleasures are the same. As stated in PD09, pleasures vary in intensity, duration, and parts of the body (and mind) affected.

Do you really think that Epicurus himself saw no difference between the pleasure of trimming his fingernails and the pleasure of (for example) sex or music or dancing or intense engagement in philosophic exchange?

I doubt you think he saw no difference between those things, and yet you feel compelled to take "absence of pain" as if everything condenses down into a state of anesthesia where you feel nothing.

I'd wager there's a connection between this and your prior flirtation with anti-natalism --and I'd look for a commonality in the issue of one's basic evaluation of whether the most important aspect of life is pleasure or suffering.

I'm not going to argue with someone (I'm talking in the absract, not to you) who is fully persuaded that life is suffering and misery and they'd rather themselves had never been born or anyone else either. That's a highly negative view of life and I know that some people's life experiences can seem to justify that conclusion.

But there is no fate or necessity of supernatural force that requires such a conclusion, and many many people find ways out of terrible situations to conclude that life is definitely worth living, just as Epicurus described how life is desirable and made similar statements in the letter to Menoeceus and throughout his work.

Plutarch and Cicero and the religious enemies of Epicurus have latched onto the "absence of pain" discussion to turn Epicurus' entire philosophy upside down, and sad for me to say but it seems like today it's almost as negative a force as Buddhism or similar eastern attitudes which emphasize suffering as the driving focus of life.

We're in a period of depression and cynicism where those attitudes have taken over the world, but that's not going to last. The depressed and cynical generations that are spoiled from their luxuries and no longer have any idea what is required to maintain happiness are going to pass away, and in the rubble they leave behind younger people are going to see that happiness requires effort and focus and a positive outlook on life.

it bothers me that so many good people are being flushed down the drain along with those who should know better but don't, and I think the right response is the kind of attitude Diogenes of Oinoanda showed in describing the majority of society as like sick sheep catching disease from one another.

"Absence of pain" has a philosophical context and a clear explanation as the description of a life which if so full of pleasures that there is no longer any room in that life for any pains. But that does NOT mean life drained of all positive active joyful and delightful activities of body and mind. It means just the opposite - it means a life full of those things.

And it's the height of outrageousness that the forces which advocate "tranquility" above pleasure have been so successful in persuading even young people that "absence of pain" implies a state that is indistinguishable from "nothingness."

Quote from Rolf

“Animals don’t just sit and do nothing after they’ve eaten, drank, slept. They fly around and play and sing.”

Why is this not a good argument against the Epicurean view of pleasure/absence of pain? If the animals have satiated all of their desires/removed all of their pain, should they not sit around and do nothing at that point?

Is it because boredom is a pain? Is it because they’re working to ensure that their pleasure continues and protect themselves against future pains? Is it because pleasure still feels good (and is still the good) even when we have no need of more?

I understand that absence of pain = fullness of pleasure, since the feelings are only two. I understand that “absence of pain” does not exist as some platonic ideal, but is a term pointing to real-world experiences. However, my cogs are still a little stuck on the logic of why we should or want to pursue further pleasures once our hunger and thirst are satiated. I feel I understand the concept but am having trouble holding it succinctly in my mind.

Quote from Don

Not directly relevant to the natalist question, but at least Epicurus was genuinely concerned with the continued well-being of Metrodorus' children, enough to specifically address their care in his will.

Yes and I would take that further and combine it with the observations that have been made by Dr Boeri and Aioz (in Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy) and by others in other contexts, that the Epicureans were far from being totally unconcerned about the welfare of society as they are caricatured by Plutarch and others.

I think it's likely that Rolfe has not been around long enough for our podcast or discussions about that book, but the book argues that Epicurus certainly understood that the happiness of himself and his friends is directly related to the welfare of society, and no society can perpetuate itself for very long without attention to who is going to replace it.

The idea that we are concerned for ourselves alone only until we are ready to exit the stage makes no sense given the emphasis on friendship and rational understanding of cause and effect, nor would it have made as much sense for the Epicureans to be concerned about future generations as Diogenes of Oinoanda explicitly stated himself to be and is implicit in the writing of Lucretius and others.

If the Epicureans had made a practice of criticizing the having and rearing of children as more trouble than it is worth, we would have had much more documentation of that in the arguments of their enemies than we do. If I recall Cicero hardly mentions this specific allegation at all, and much of the rest of the argument is an attack alleging that humans have no bonds of affection for each other, which is a misreading of Epicurus' position on how society arises through nature rather than through divine guidance.

We don't have to have had children ourselves to be very glad for and supportive of those who do.

Quote from Rolf

Thanks for the reply Cassius. I feel I may be a bit lost in the weeds... From the way you describe things, it doesn't seem like the observable and verifiable aspects of quantum physics and modern physics in general contradict Epicurean physics at all, beyond some changing terminology (eg. "atom" referring to the smallest indivisible substance). Quantum indeterminacy seems to align well with the idea that some things happen by chance rather than necessity or choice.

I think that's generally correct. As long as we are all devoted to finding the explanations for all phenomena in Nature, and we are not implying that there is something "non-natural" behind what we see, then all is well.

And I will be happy to agree that most scientists are approaching things in that way. But we're not able here to become specialists ourselves, and the real issue is not the legitimate debate between competing natural theories, it's the "uses" to which the scientific theories are put by non-specialists who do not admit the limitations of the existing science that causes most of the problems.

There are definitely differing interpretations of the Heisenberg "uncertainty" principles and the issues surrounding Schroediger's cat. But in the field we are in (practical philosophy for living life) those become slogans that can be used to intimidate nonspecialists into believing that "of course" nothing is really knowable or predictable, or "of course" we make our own realities through our observation of it. Again, no one is doing that here, but part of our job in understanding (and promoting) Epicurean philosophy is to talk about how it responds to challenges.

Really the "swerve" in Epicurean philosophy is open to exactly this same kind of misuse. We've discussed before that if you took "the swerve" to its possible logical extreme, then the swerve would consume the rest of the physics and make all the rest of the system fall apart. This is discussed in AA Long's article "Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism." But neither Cicero nor the other enemies of Epicurus recorded an attack like that, obvious as it would have been to make it, because it seems the Epicureans were careful to limit the operation of the swerve to prevent that kind of application.

It's definitely a constant challenge to keep things in line, but I think it begins to come into focus when - for example - you realize that to Epicurus "atom" just meant "indivisible" and that it makes no difference at all where that level is found -- whether it is found what we call today at the molecular, atomic, subatomic, quantum, or whatever other level. The argument to swat down is the essentially mystical argument that the divisibility "never" stops, because that would compel the conclusion that there is ultimately nothing (except a supernatural force) that can be counted on as a basis for the predictable reality that we do see to exist.

Quote from Rolf

If somebody presents physical, observable, repeatable evidence for something that contradicts my worldview, I’d be a fool to not at least consider it. Blind acceptance and rejection is the domain of supernatural religion. This isn’t me blindly rejecting epicurean physics in favour of whatever I read in science articles, but asking honest questions about things I’m genuinely unsure about.

And I completely agree that that is the right attitude. Going further, however, there is absolutely no reason to expect, and therefor every reason to reject, contentions that "one day" science will prove the existence of a supernatural force, or absolute determinism, or radical skepticism, because those are logical impossibilities given what we know already. If you admit that "maybe they'll prove those things tomorrow" then you've essentially lost the game already, because you will have given in and accepted an argument for a "possibility" that has no evidence to support its possibility whatsoever. You've lost the game of logic if you give in to logic that has no basis in hard evidence.

Our position of no supernatural forces, hard determinsm is false, and radical skepticism is false, is already proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Those are big philosophic issues, but I personally place "the universe as a whole is eternal" and the universe as a whole is infinite in size" in the same category as already proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Nothing can come from nothing or go to nothing" is very close to the same category, but that is one where everything turns on your definition of a "thing" (energy? waves? some other term?) and since quantum mechanics is what we're talking about, it's perfectly acceptable to me to talk in those terms rather than atoms, as long as the ultimate limit is remembered and the mysticism doesn't thereby creep in.

Rolf speaking for myself (and I suspect Bryan would agree but he will say it better), I am not denying the existence of subatomic particles in any way whatsoever. And what is currently held to be the lowest level may ultumately prove to be only another intermediate step.

But the point Epicurus is making is that the particles are not "infinitely" indivisible, as asserted by some, with the corollary being that Epicurus holds that regularity comes from the consistency of the ultimate particles, not from (as others assert) a mystical overlay at any or every step along the way.

We're always dealing with the logical games of Parminides in that sense -- the assertion that there is NO bottom limit whatsoever, which leads to conclusions such as motion is impossible and other assertions that are contrary to what we sense to be the case.

It's the unstated implications of the assertions of INFINITE divisibility and FINITE size and age of the universe as a whole that creates the logical problems and inserts the possibility of supernatural forces that is objectionable.

Dave:

The primary example I have cited in the past is Lawrence Krauss and his book "A Universe from Nothing" which we've discussed in the context of the Heraclitian Flux thread. We've also discussed Sabine Hossenfelder and her strongly determinist viewpoint.

But I know you're asking a much more general question, and it comes down to asking for specific cites to particular scientists to whom I object, in the absence of which it is your view that the concerns I have about these issues is unwarranted.

I would very much like to oblige you and go through specific citations, and in fact we could use AI questioning (as I believe I recall us doing in that other thread) to try to make the effort more manageable. Or as an alternative, we could look these issues up in Wikipedia and get a sense of the general drift of the majority viewpoints from their point of view. Over time I will do my best to satisfy you and those who ask these questions (as you are definitely not alone) with all the resources I can bring to bear on it. In fact this is one example why I have not agreed to ban all use of AI resources on the forum. Doing raw research on who takes what position is likely to be an excellent use of AI as a starting point for answering these questions.

But at the most basic level, we'll simply have to disagree as to what we individually observe from our own experiences. My observation is that not only are my general concerns not overstated, but they are in fact understated. In fact I think these issues are much more of a concern than is generally appreciated precisely for the reason that the observation is correct. It is my view that much of "science" has become so dominated by political and corporate considerations that it is not even acceptable to discuss the possibility that there is any suppression of dissent.

At the moment I have to budget my time and pick my battles, and I think it is much more important for me to focus on the "absence of pain" and "nature of pleasure" ethical issues, along with the epistemology questions that come into play, than it is to catalog the scientists who I believe to be on the wrong side of these issues.

I'll get back to this as I can find the time, because I do agree that the issue is important. But it is my strong perception that the battle over deference to experts in physics is closely related to issues of dogmatism and determinism that some people consider to be outside physics. if our physics issues were limited to "X scientists are right about subatomic particles and Y scientists are wrong," then there would be seem to be no reason for urgency or concern over which set of scientists is correct.

But it is precisely because the positions taken on physics do impact the other issues and have such clear implications for them that Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins found it appropriate to argue. Again I do not defer to Richard Dawkins as a modern-day Epicurus, but if there is anyone sensitive to Epicurus's viewpoint as they conflict with modern attitudes, I would put Dawkins near the top of the list. It is my perception that Krauss sees the importance of the same conflict as does Dawkins, but from the opposite viewpoint. And I do not see Dawkins and Krauss as outliers, but as the tip of the iceberg.

If your experience has been different, and you see no scientists arguing these positions I am concerned about, then I'll take that as an encouraging data point and consider it in my future attention on this issue. But my own personal experience in attempting to keep current on educated but non-specialist literature over my adult life has led me to a strongly opposite conclusion.

But by all means let's continue this discussion now and over time and as long as anyone reading this thread is willing to continue it, because it's certainly a goal of mine to have more material developed on this extremely important issue.

Quote from Rolf

I was a big fan of Benatar and antinatalism as a teenager. How things can change…

For the better!!!