Posts by Cassius

Joshua I too consume a lot of audio podcasts, in my case (mostly in the past) listening in areas of two particular interests: keto/dietary advice podcasts, as well as linux for computers.

I have uniformly found the philosophy podcasts I have tried to listen to to be unhelpful. And I think a major reason is something you allude to as "esoteric arguments." Many of the philosophy podcasts I have listened to turn into "XX said this, YY said this, and that was a good point but MM had a better point....." and it all just goes round and round and round with no target ever reached. That may be a perfectly good format for a philosophy student learning to recite facts about different positions, but it's not a formula for putting out a positive program that actually helps somebody. It's necessary to take a position (which is really what the "dogmatism" charge is all about, rather than dance around every issue.

So I do think taking a position is important, but it's also true that even among students of Epicurus there are very different opinions on some fairly significant issues. I don't think we can ignore that those issues exist, but I think it is possible to state that they exist, give the arguments for each, and then put them aside in deference to the greater importance of the core points.

Issues about free will are a pretty good example, and probably issues about things like the canon and anticipations are of secondary importance. Quite a few podcasts could be done on the Epicurean view of gods, and the Epicurean view of death, without hitting too many divergences. (Of course there are issues as to interpretation of Epicurean gods, but everyone is agreed that there are no supernatural gods.)

But when we then come to PD3 and PD4, especially if someone wants to refer to the "tetrapharmakon" we almost immediately hit what is probably the most important issue. Absence of gods and absence of life-after-death are relatively straightforward, but we also need to be clear on the positive side -- in the absence of gods and threat/punishment of afterlife, how does PLEASURE step into that role and provide us the guidance to live life. That is something where it will also be important to state the varying opinions, but it will also be the minefield that - if not navigated correctly - will blow up the whole endeavor.

You DO have an excellent voice for a podcast!! Reflective and serious without being over-the-top philosophically useless, if you know what I mean.

That is an excellent introduction too Joshua!

Many of us have been batting this around for months and even years without making any real progress. The real hurdle seems to be what you're referring to a the "mission statement." While we are all pretty much of the same mind when it comes to absence of supernatural gods and absence of life after death, the "positive" side -- (the meaning of pleasure as the guide) is something on which there is so much variety of opinion that I've found that to be a major obstacle.

One the one side you have those who stress simplicity/minimalism/absence of pain as the meaning of the philosophy, and on the others you have those (like me) who think that that approach cuts off the more important part of the philosophy, the part that stresses "“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.” and which Cicero described disparagingly a " to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures" which I also think is emphatically stated this way in On Ends:

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

In fact, I was recently circulating this clip from DeWitt's book on this very point:

Not every question has to be resolved before a project like a podcast or other outreach program can be started, but this one is so basic, and so divisive, that clarity on it at the beginning is probably required in order to avoid lots of problems dead ahead.

I completely agree with the suggestion and also Joshua's comments. We don't spend as much time on the nothingness of death as we should. We are surrounded by either fundamentalist Christianity or new-age spiritualism to the point where it seems most everyone lives their life as if this were only the opening act of an eternal life.

I know in my own case that the knowledge of my own mortality is a key motivator for me to get things done rather than procrastinate, and I bet many people are like that.

So yes it's a great idea to use this thread to create links to relevant material, and at the end of the process come up with a position statement.

Position statements in general I think are very good idea, even if we don't designate them for any particular purpose. The process of forming them helps us articulate them in our own minds, and having them available makes it much easier to introduce to new people what "we" are all about.

Excellent! Josh do you mean "fail to grief" or "fail to grieve" in line 7?

Thank you Godfrey! Great pictures!

Check out this link for a very detailed list of people relevant to Epicurean commentary in the ancient world.

https://www.bu.edu/ict/anrw/pub/II/36/ferguson.html

I don't yet have a copy of this book so if anyone know anything about it or a source for it (especially in PDF) please let me know!

This article contains interesting commentary on the development of Epicurus' canon of truth.

File

David Sedley - Sextus Empiricus And The Atomist Criterion of Truth

David Sedley - Sextus Empiricus And The Atomist Criterion of Truth

Cassius

July 1, 2019 at 5:17 PM

Also at this link: http://lexicon.cnr.it/index.php/DDL/article/view/123/62

Yes I completely agree that what is currently labeled today as "consumerism" fits under the category of unnatural desires that can't be satisfied. My main issue is not that this is invalid, but that it's pretty far removed from the heart of Epicurean philosophy and shouldn't be focused on as the exclusive target. Other issues such as the nature of the universe, the nature of true divinity, pleasure as the goal, the nothingnesss of death, etc are all much more significant, and I rarely if ever see those issues discussed by de Botton.

As to monasteries originally being gardens I agree that is not nearly as far fetched. If we were looking for possible Epicurean communities that would be a place to consider. On the other hand there is direct teaching about Epicurus not advising "communism" to his students, so aside from setting up "schools" (which certainly don't have to be based on common property) I'm just not aware of any evidence that would point to communal living. In fact of course the Garden itself was not common property at the time (Epicurus disposed of it in his will). As to teaching as a profession I think there are passages which you quote (Hiram) about accepting money for teaching, so again its seems to me that doesn't really point to "communal living" as much as it points to what we would see as a private school or college.

Here are two translations of the same section of the letter to Menoeceus. The left is the Epicurus wiki at Epicurism.info and the right is Cyril Bailey's "Epicurus the Extant Remains." I am not able to offer an opinion in the Greek original, but I can offer an opinion on the English wording:

The English wording presented here equates "pleasure" with "absence of pain" as if the two concepts were interchangeable in every respect. My contention is (1) that it is clear to any "normal human" that the two concepts are clearly NOT interchangeable in every respect, (2) that Epicurus was in every relevant respect a "normal human," and (3) that therefore there is (a) some corruption of the text, (b) some corruption or inadequacy of the translation, (c) some missing context that explains the apparent discrepancy, or some combination of (a), (b), and (c).

Note also that this text, even in its current form which appears to equate the two terms, does not state that "absence of pain" is "the highest pleasure" as seems to be regularly assumed in writing on Epicurus. In neither translation is it stated that "the goal" or "the end" is "absence of pain" unless one adds a third equivalency ("pleasure" = "absence of pain" = "the goal / the end") which is also counter-intuitive.

I believe the relationship lies not in "equivalency" but in "quantity" as is referenced in PD3, but there is no doubt that the current English translations are written as if the meaning were clearly "pleasure is equivalent to absence of pain."

If you have the knowledge of Greek sentence structure to comment on how the wording does or does not suggest equivalency, please post your comment. And if you have another theory on how to reconcile this please post that as well.

Quote from JJElbert

The third Oration of Himerius against Epicurus

I will google but do you have a good link for that? Thanks!

Yes the combination of "staying out of politics" and "cultivating one's own garden" would seem almost unmistakeable. I read that book too many years ago to remember the details, and now that I have seen the movies I have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

BTW the movie ST3 - Marauder has some pretty major anti-religious messaging.

A grass root movement of individuals yes, bit as far as i have seen no evidence of organized communities. The Villa in Herculaneum *might* possibly qualify but even that may be a stretch. I think the issue is whether there were *organized* communities outside in the garden in Athens, and I have never seen any reliable evidence of any at all.

Had there been organization it might have been possible for Epicurean philosophy to survive longer than it did.

The following comes from a recent discussion in which the work of Alain de Botton. It started in the context of whether there were ever Epicurean communities in the ancient world outside the garden in Athens, but the main reason I am posting this is that I want to preserve Elayne's commentary (below, EC) with which I totally agree and think to be very important:

SG: I remember, Alain de Botton stated the same thing about Epicurean communities. He even added some of what we know as old monasteries, belonged to Epicureans before Christianity came to power and declared them as heretic and illegal cults. Well, he may not be a legit source. But do we have any?

Cassius: I don't consider Alain to be a legitimate source for this because I have never seen him (or anyone else) produce documentation / source material for these suggestions. No personal offense intended to him, but in general my observation is that Alain is a good example of someone who is basically an eclectic / humanist who has set out to adopt some, but by no means all, of Epicurus' views in support of his own political agenda.

The part of Alain's material that I have seen focuses so heavily on "anticommercialism" that I find his material to be detrimental some who might otherwise dig in and pursue he deeper points Epicurus was making. My experience is that Alain is one of many who immediately jump to "pleasure is the absence of pain" so they can write normal feelings of pleasure out of the playbook and then forget about it as they pursue a minimalist / ascetic lifestyle. That minimalist lifestyle, which he has selected for reasons of his own, appears to me to be the true goal of his work.

SG: Cassius, I agree with your criticism. I also think his project, if developed, can lead to a secular community which has a lifestyle of his own, as he briefly refers to, in his Atheism V. 2.0 lecture.

EC: SG, I liked Alain's book on "Religion for Atheists", which was focused not on a communal living arrangement but on groups which would meet regularly, as churches do, to develop and reinforce their understanding of what is important to them in life... and to enjoy the non religious benefits church members enjoy, such as singing together, friendship, etc.

Really, this is what a modern Epicurean Garden would do, in my opinion. Follow Epicurus' advice about studying nature together, with friends!

I was actually a member for a couple of years of a small secular group based on that atheism book. We met every Sunday night and took turns presenting a topic, then ate dinner together.

I did not know about Epicurean Philosophy at the time, but the one I was working out for myself was almost exactly the same, just not fully elaborated.

So I would talk about, for instance, the fact that our desires CAN be satisfied-- that we reach a point where we are happy with the amount of food or sleep we have had-- so desire is not insatiable. Or that just because a pleasure is transitory does not make it invalid. Or that one can directly seek happiness, pleasure, successfully-- that failures are not due to impossibility of seeking happiness but of ineffective methods. Or that there is no such thing as universal consciousness. Or that there is nothing wrong with having an ego, a self-- that part of our brain is what allows us to make decisions for our happiness! To get rid of it is an error, and it is biological, not an illusion.

And nobody in that group ever understood those ideas. ? I had no clue why I was always out of sync with them, on almost every point, until I learned about Epicurus.

That is when I realized how far off modern secular groups were from my philosophy and how much they had been affected by Stoics and Buddhists.

So anyway, I think that idea of the groups can work, but not unless it is explicitly Epicurean and the members are solidly supporting EP -- otherwise the current type of atheists will drag it in a direction we wouldn't want to go.

Thanks Martin, I will fix that now. Facebook is so tricky!

Now should be fixed.

Over the years I have found this to be one of the best articles available on the impact of "the swerve" in human affairs, and how Epicurus likely reconciled his idea of the swerve (which if carried to an extreme would mean that nothing is predictable) with the regularity we see in the world around us.

Find "Chance and Natural Law In Epicureanism" here on the forum at this link.

"In short, I think we have limited, not absolute, Freewill." I agree with that, presumably, but what does "absolute free will" mean to a regular person? Does anyone seriously assert that humans have the free will to jump off a canyon ledge and by willpower float to the ground unharmed? No - so "absolute" lends mostly confusion to the discussion.

It seems to me that the obvious position anyone can understand is the one Epicurus asserted, that "some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency."

The real problem that Stoicism and other supernatural-based views introduce is the issue of what is probably better called "fate" - the issue of whether everything was set in motion with foresight by some supernatural force. If you accept that premise on faith, rather than ignoring the eternal universe nothing from nothing / nothing to no nothing evidence, then you go into as spiral of trying to find out "god's" intention, and why he introduced suffering into the world, and all that line of nonsense.

And that's why I think Epicurus prefaced the quote above with " Fate, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he scorns...."

If you come to the conclusion that Nature gives us the faculty of pleasure as our ultimate guidance, and you want to live the most pleasurable life possible, then you aren't going to spin around in anxious circles talking about angels and demons and supernatural gods setting up a "fate" to which we are predestined.

You don't just suspend judgment on the issue of "fate" - you SCORN the very idea of "Fate" as the nonsense that it is --- and Stoicism / all variants of theism lead in exactly the wrong direction on that point.

TH:

From my reading of Epictetus, he viewed us as having LIMITED Freewill.

The best example from his reading is from Discourses II. The example is going on a trip.one can select the captain, ship, crew, destination and date of departure. Beyond that, there is much outside of our control. For example, we could becalmed. Or we could encounter a ferocious storm and our ship founder. None of those are in our control. Chance enters at some point, no matter how hard we try, wish or demand. And there is nothing we can do to change the random character of the universe.

Since our control is limited, we are kind of like the dog on the leash. Do we control if there is war and hunger? Do we control drought and famine? To a certain degree, we as individuals can impact those things, but if the general tide is against us, we control little.

Rand believed we could change the world with our will. Perhaps if enough agreed with the goal we could influence all events. Certainly we see individuals in history who have made great changes by force of will. Those individuals are extremely rare and not the norm.

In short, I think we have limited, not absolute, Freewill.

(1) Dewitt's book talks about this connection, especially in connection with the Sadducees and the view that there is no afterlife. See attached graphic.

(2) This is focused on the christian texts rather than the jewish, but Thomas Jefferson's friend Thomas Cooper argued at length that materialism was the true premise of biblical theology https://thomascoopermd.wordpress.com/the-scripture-…of-materialism/

NB: I notice a linguistic connection between the ancient Greek word 'hedone' and the Hebrew word from which we derive 'Eden'. It seems that 'Eden' can be translated as 'Delight' and 'Pleasure'. (The Hebrew language provides different vocabulary to denote 'holiness', 'righteousness', or 'sanctity'). An Aramaic root indicates that which is "fruitful, plentiful," or that which is "well-watered", thus, linking the idea of 'that which is pleasant' to 'healthy, living beings'.

Prior to their adoption of monotheism, and before their monolatrist period of YHWH-privileged worship, did Hebrew populations explore philosophical materialism? I found one reference to 'pleasure' as being a desirable reward for following the precepts of the deity (Talmud Kidushin 82:b). We also find language in 'Ecclesiastes' and 'Song of Songs' that use sensual imagery to express religious belief.

I wonder how influential philosophical materialism was on early Judaism––at the same time, I remind myself that Hellenistic Jews demonized Epicurus and his followers (אפיקורוס or 'Epikoros') as irreligious heathens. However, it seems to me that their demonization was based on Epicurus' rejection of an afterlife, and necessarily on his hedonism. Of course, physical pleasure is not seen as the goal of Hebrew worship, just a bonus to worshipping correctly.

Still, I think the more important point is that we find 'pleasure' as a necessary starting point in every tradition, even those that try to avoid it. Throughout the Middle Eastern world, monotheists acknowledge that our ancestors were born into a natural paradise; those same monotheists continue to privilege this lush, fertile, pleasure-filled period as the golden age of humanity.

GFL: I am quite surprised about the statement that pain and pleasure are subjective. I understand that they are qualia, i.e their nature cannot be communicated, but they have to be experienced in order to be understood. It is one of the three faculties that we have as guidance to truth. Fire is objectively painful for everybody, just as the sweetness of sugar is pleasant to everybody.

Subjectiveness of pain and pleasure would make interactions with other people extremely difficult, if not impossible. It would mean I could torture others and then claim that it was not possible for me to know, whether it was painful or pleasurable to them. Objectiveness of pain and pleasure is given by the common physiological nature that we share as human beings.

Cassius Amicus Perhaps "contextual" would be a better word, and I bet Elayne can do better here than I will, but this is what I think is the point of the word "subjective":

Fire is not *always* painful - it warms us in winter, and in certain conditions fire applied to a part of the body for a short period may be the best remedy for a particular urgent problem, such as cauterizing a wound, and even be immediately pleasurable in ending some intense bodily pain.

Even the sweetness of sugar can become sickening after eating too much of something that is sweet in a short period of time.

To me this relates to the physics as explained by Lucretius in referring to the properties of elements and the qualities of the bodies that come together from the combination of elements. There are ranges of possibilities, and not only single results. That is as is referenced in book one of Lucretius:

"Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns a conqueror ***to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark."***

What we are talking about are natural limits and bounds that have within them in many cases wide ranges of different possibilities, and that applies to things that are painful and things that are pleasurable. They are innumerable, but within limits.

Pleasure is by definition always pleasurable, and pain is by definition always painful, but what precise conditions will cause a particular individual to feel pain, or pleasure, does not always follow the same pattern. Events that cause pleasure and pain are frequently subjective or contextual according to the particular makeup and context of the individual. In many cases it is only the resulting pleasure and pain that we perceive as "objective" to us, rather than something in the nature of the event that *always* produces the same result. (I should perhaps say **all** cases but for this discussion I will stay with **many**.)

This is just in the same way that "virtue" is contextual rather than absolute, a point in Epicurus that is equally clear from sayings such as PD10:

"10. If the things that produce the pleasures of profligate men really freed them from fears of the mind concerning celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, and the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasures from every source and would never have pain of body or mind, which is what is bad."

Cassius Amicus "Subjectiveness of pain and pleasure would make interactions with other people extremely difficult, if not impossible. " << And indeed, our different preferences in pleasure and pain DO make interactions with **some** other people "extremely difficult if not impossible." What you and I find pleasing as a way of life, Gaius Florius, I wager would make life very difficult for us were we to attempt to live the rest of our lives in downtown Mecca. Which differences in viewpoint on what we find pleasurable and painful is why some people get along very well with others, and some are constantly at war.

39. The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life.

40. Those who possess the power to defend themselves against threats by their neighbors, being thus in possession of the surest guarantee of security, live the most pleasant life with one another....

1

GFL: Cassius Amicus Do people really feel different things pleasurable, or do they not rather make wrong judgements? Is ascesis the result of people finding pleasure in hardship or not rather the delusional hope for an imaginary reward?

EC - GFL:, to say someone made a "wrong" judgment about pain or pleasure is to assert you have an absolute standard, which does not exist.

Because we are in the same species, there are certainly a great many events which will stimulate pain for most typical humans, or pleasure. It would be surprising if that were not so. This is more likely the case with events likely to cause severe tissue damage or death, given the role of pain as a warning signal.

But even for tissue damaging events, the only objective measure would be of damage or no damage. Not pain or no pain, which is subjective. If someone has no nerve function to respond to a burn, they are not making a wrong judgment when they report no pain-- the lack of pain is part of the diagnosis and is accurate. If someone feels phantom limb pain, the pain is real, even though the initial stimulus is gone.

For me, enjoying anticipatory hunger seems to accurately reflect that food is coming... but if someone else feels that as pain, I won't tell them they are wrong!

For other events, there can be wide variation. For instance, the taste of cilantro can be like soap for a significant portion of the population, due to genetic variation. Most of them don't like cilantro. Can you say which taste is a "wrong judgment"? I can't.

I enjoy classical music and opera-- I know people who act like they are being tortured by opera ?! Are they incorrect about their preferences in music? How would you ascertain that?

Cassius Amicus Gaius I am thinking that it is not quite exactly the right word to talk about a "judgment" of what is pleasurable. I am thinking that Epicurus stressed that pleasure is a "feeling" and that this section of On Ends was intended to address not only that pleasure is good, but what pleasure itself really is:

"Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, be thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them. (For there is a difference, he holds, between formal syllogistic proof of a thing and a mere notice or reminder: the former is the method for discovering abstruse and recondite truths, the latter for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.) Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature.What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?"

GFL: Judgment is only required for actions, not for the distinction of pain and pleasure, which is simply a premise for our judgment.

I think we can keep physiologigal disorders out of the issue and focus on the statistical norm.

For non-discapacitated people the feeling of pain and pleasure is the same, yet their decisions differ.

Some people may prefer an unpleasant (bitter) taste, because it brings them back past memories, but the taste is still objectively bitter, i.e. unpleasant.

If we deny that pleasure and pain is the same for all, how can there even be a disagreement between Epicureans and Stoics? One could just say that Stoics get their pleasure from virtue.

Fact is, they do not. They make a wrong judgement about the reward for their arbitrary virtue.

It would be the same for a masochist that may claim that he gets pleasure from being flogged. He does not. He feels pain like anybody else. But he makes a wrong judgment and hopes for imaginary recocnition and attention from the sadist.

Without objective standards for pleasure and pain, we would not need different philosophies, because everybody could just claim that it is his way to find pleasure.

Cassius Amicus "One could just say that Stoics get their pleasure from virtue." Yes I would say that some Stoics allege that they do get pleasure from virtue, and I would admit that some do get pleasure from virtue. I think the issue here is that we are not saying that abstractions cannot be pleasurable. Of course they can. The thought of living forever singing songs to God is pleasurable, certainly, at least for a time. And Epicurus said that mental pleasures can be and often are more intense than physical ones.

I think the point that needs clarification is the issue stated in On Ends, which is what facts of reality truly produce the happiest life - in other words, how to "rationally" pursue pleasure: "But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of reprobating pleasure and extolling pain arose. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure."

Epicurus did not condemn religion because of the pleasure it produced in the priests, at least in the short term, for them. And Epicurus made very clear that if the legends of the gods IN FACT produced the happiest life, then he would endorse it, just as he would endorse any depraved lifestyle that in fact produces happiness.

The truth is that religion does not produce the happiest life, because it is false, and those who believe in it are in the far greater number of cases vastly disappointed. Do some live their entire lives happily in a myth? Yes, and if so, more power to them, would be Epicurus' response. But living in a mirage is not reasonably calculated to lead to the happiest living for most people.

"Without objective standards for pleasure and pain, we would not need different philosophies, because everybody could just claim that it is his way to find pleasure."

But the point is not that our "objective standards" produce happy living. Nature does not care about our "objective standards." Nature created individual humans with particular concepts and their own capacities and faculties. Yes those faculties are not random, and yes they generally fall within a range of limits. But that range can be very wide, as wide as Islam is from Harvard-style atheist hedonism, and there is no "objective" way to resolve the differences of opinions between groups who are so divergent.

Unless you want to talk about military force or similar methods of genocide, because those are certainly capable of producing "objective" results. I am of course not suggesting that those are viable options, but the cliche about "no accounting for tastes" is a huge understatement. What I am saying is that the issue cannot be reduced to a taste-test to measure that 98% of people enjoy Coca-Cola original formula. Yes that kind of testing in raw bodily data is possible. But pleasure is a faculty that embraces both bodily and mental activities, and the range of mental activities that we find pleasurable or painful is so broad as to be practically limitless.

Elayne Coulter I am astonished that anyone could argue that differences in pain and pleasure are matters of judgment rather than feeling! They are matters of neurotransmitters. If someone gets a burst of serotonin, oxytocin, and/or endorphins from an experience, they are experiencing pleasure, a feeling, not a thought.

Perhaps more examples will help?

Some people think The Three Stooges are funny-- they laugh spontaneously at slapstick comedy. In the pleasure category. Others get an instant sense of annoyance-- even to the point it would be torture to force them to watch. Pain. Yes, thoughts are involved, but the resulting pain and pleasure are feelings, and they happen within the person-- they are not properties of the Stooges.

Salt is an interesting one-- if a person has been sweating and is in need of salt, they crave more salt on their food and will feel pleasure eating it-- the same person would find that food too salty-- unpleasant, mild pain-- on another day. This is one of the ways we have evolved to intuitively regulate our salt balance, through pain and pleasure under different circumstances. This is for a normal person, not any sort of disorder.

I know people who love hot peppers-- it causes release of pleasurable endorphins. Yes, they feel it as hot, but they also feel pleasure. For me, it's hot and painful, no pleasure. The feeling is the response, not the stimulus.

Our evolved biological resemblances lead to many pain and pleasure experiences in agreement.

The difference in philosophy is about the role of pleasures and their contribution to a happy life. Although we can make some generalizations, due to shared genes, about actions that will cause pleasure or pain for most of us, that's not the most important part of EP, in my opinion. The important part is understanding that happiness consists of pleasures, and so to be happy, one ought to pay attention to what decisions bring about the most net pleasure. It's great to learn from the reactions most humans have-- but it's also critical to observe one's own, individual preferences. Otherwise you might mistakenly choose or avoid slapstick, salty food, or hot pepper based on what brings other people pleasure.

Cassius Amicus This from Elayne is an example of the point being made about Stoicism or any other emotional / intellectual experience. And it isn't even necessary to see or here them sat the moment - simply recalling the three stooges to mind can be pleasurable or painful:

"Some people think The Three Stooges are funny-- they laugh spontaneously at slapstick comedy. In the pleasure category. Others get an instant sense of annoyance-- even to the point it would be torture to force them to watch. Pain. Yes, thoughts are involved, but the resulting pain and pleasure are feelings, and they happen within the person-- they are not properties of the Stooges."

It is a huge mistake to limit the range of pleasure to food, air, etc.

GFL: First I would like to thank everybody for this pleasant discussion with so many well-thought arguments. This is something rather unusual these days on Facebook.

Elayne brought up some complex examples, like our different reaction to the same stimulus (pepper). I have not enough data to give an answer to this and I think the issue is still subject to scientific research. I recently read a study about why some people prefer bitter tastes like coffee and others do not.

However I would like to clarify a less complex issue, where I think I was misunderstood. Pleasure and pain is not subject to judgment, it is data. We have a sense that tells us exactly if and how much painful/pleasant an experience is. Judgment is necessary for our actions. And here we can be wrong, because we might not correctly identify the cause of our pleasure.

I have three simple examples:

1. A person might decide to get drunk, because he had a lot of fun last weekend while being drunk. He went to a club, met nice people and enjoyed the evening. However when he tries to repeat the pleasant experience, he insults other people while being drunk, gets into a quarrel with his friend, falls from the stairs on his way back home and has a hangover next morning – all in all a very unpleasant experience.

The reason for it is the wrong judgment. Because it was not the state of ebriety that caused his pleasure, but other circumstances that coincided with it. The wrong judgment of equaling ebriety with pleasure caused the wrong decision to get drunk and a lot of unpleasant events.

2. A monk may think that ascesis and deprivation of all bodily pleasures will give him happiness in the afterlife. So he leads a miserable life in the monastery that he does not enjoy at all. He gets bitter and angry but imagines that after death he will be rewarded in a way that overcompensates his suffering. The more he suffers, the closer he thinks he will get to paradise, which at least sporadically gives him a positive feeling. If we follow Epicurus’ teachings there is no existence after death. So all his sacrifices were in vain and the overall balance of happiness in his life was negative. Again a wrong judgment caused more pain than pleasure.

3. The last example is the wide-spread belief that money equals happiness. Some people may commit crimes or betray their friends with the goal to obtain money and reach a point in life, when they have so much money that they will be completely happy. Statistical data however shows that the opposite is true. Wealth does not lead to happiness and the likelihood of suicide is much higher among wealthy people as compared to people around the poverty level. Again a wrong judgment about what causes happiness led to a wrong decision.

All these three people would have confirmed to you that this is their personal way to find happiness and that they know better than anybody else, what gives them happiness. But objectively they were wrong. It did not give them happiness; they misidentified what actually gives pleasure to them. This is where the wrong judgment comes in.

EC -- GFL:, yes! That is why using our actual feelings of pain and pleasure, not reasoning based on misinformation, is so important! These people are trying to define happiness as something other than pleasure, and that will definitely lead a person away from happiness.

I will just say for alcohol, it isn't just the circumstances that cause the pleasure or pain-- it's a combination of the chemical effects, the dose, the person's particular physiology/enzyme variants and capacity, plus the circumstances-- and this is a situation that calls for assessing net effects. Because some actions _do_ cause immediate, true pleasure, but the net effects are painful. Meaning, there doesn't have to be misattribution of the source of pleasure for the overall effects to be unpleasant and therefore advised against.

Maybe a good example would be a person having intense enjoyment of the taste of a certain food... but this food contributes to their type 2 diabetes being poorly controlled. Later they lose their vision and have their feet amputated because they didn't consider the net effects. Whereas another person with no predisposition to diabetes can eat the same delicious food and live to 100 with no trouble. In this case, both had immediate pleasure but only one had net pain.

Cassius Amicus Probably even the diabetic example shows how hard it is to make the decision for someone else. Who gets to decide the "net pleasure" calculation - if having a foot amputated a month before death is worth a lifetime of eating the food that someone really enjoys? I don't know myself what my answer would be to that. No doubt it would depend on all sorts of hard-to-predict i individual variables about how long one thinks one would live, etc. If I were a kamikaze pilot, or both my parents had died at age 50 for 5 generations from heart attacks unrelated to diabetes, I might not give as much thought to the effect of diabetes at age 80.

This is no detraction from Epicurus though. Just because it's difficult to calculate, or even to know how to calculate, the net final effects of a particular decision, that doesn't mean that we should fall back to decision-making based on false gods or false idealism. Each of us has to make our own estimate of the effects of our actions, because there is no god or no absolute standard making the decision for us. And in particular, no god looks to reward us in an afterlife for intentionally under-achieving in our pursuit of pleasure.

EC - Cassius, I agree! It would depend on that person's own degree of pleasure and pain-- it's useful to consider the big picture when making those decisions, but ultimately only the person deciding can know which path has more pleasure!

GFL: I am strongly convinced that to all problems there is only one logically correct answer and it can be objectively established. The risk and possible benefit of a lifestyle choice can be precisely calculated. It is called "expected utility rule" and a way to make rational decisions under uncertainty. You can for example take statistical data about diabetes into account. One does not automatically become an expert in something, because it affects oneself. It is useful to take professional advice, even when it comes to maximization of pleasure due to its objective nature.

EC - GFL:, I am a physician, and I can assure you that medicine is not that advanced. I can tell a patient the probability of something happening for an average patient (who doesn't exist), but I cannot tell that person what she enjoys most.

If a specific objective health outcome is the goal, I can give data, which is often very unclear, with multiple confounding factors.

If subjective pleasure is the goal, I must ask the patient what she enjoys in life. I have no direct measurement of pleasure available at this time. If you mean surveys to ask people to rate their pleasure in different circumstances, there is significant variation between humans.

Cassius Amicus "I am strongly convinced that to all problems there is only one logically correct answer and it can be objectively established."

And as a committed atomist who doesn't believe in a supernatural god, a realm of ideal forms, or a center of the universe from which there is one "correct" perspective, I am strongly convinced that to all human ethical problems (which is I think what we are talking about) there are many possible options, and that the individuals concerned are by nature given the ultimate criteria by which to choose between those options. (And that ultimate criteria is their own feeling of pleasure and pain, by which I mean to include **all** their mental and bodily feelings of pleasures and pains.)

GFL: There are many options to choose from, but only one reasonable one.

This is what I like about Epicurus. He does not need beliefs or feelings. All of his teachings can be concluded from empirical observation without additional assumptions.

"Nothing should be believed, except that, which has been tested through direct observation and logical deduction."

He is the father of the modern scientific method.

Cassius Amicus Yes as to the importance of observation and deduction, but the irony that you are not incorporating is that in the end, observation and deduction show us that the only thing that "matters" is feeling!

Cassius Amicus What is the root of saying that something "matters" to us? What is the root of saying that something has "meaning" or "meaningfulness" to us? In the end, those words all add up to "we have a *feeling* about it, or "it causes a *feeling* within us." In the end, all of the innumerable specific feelings we have can be considered to be (if we want to assign words) either pleasurable or painful to us.

EC - Oh, my! Without feelings of pain to warn us of tissue damage, we would not survive very long! Without feelings of pleasure, we have anhedonia, a key symptom of depression, and we would not care about surviving.

Feelings of pain and pleasure are not only essential to guide choices for long term pleasure/ happiness- they are essential for survival. It doesn't take much observation of animal life to come to this conclusion!