Posts by Hiram

I think I read somewhere that the brain is the organ that consumes BY FAR the most energy, accounting for up to 20 % of total energy consumption in the body.

Also, on agency and freedom, Sartre tackles this when he says that we are what we make of what life gives us, and in his existential literature he delves into the tension between our facticity (that which we are born with, that we have no control over and acts as gravity pulling us down) and our instinct of freedom, our process of self-creation which we do have control over.

A Concrete Self - addresses some of these "ghost in the machine" issues, which really are inherited from a faulty, Platonized interpretation of reality. The essay reconciles a modern materialist theory of self with Epicurus' teachings in his Epistle to Herodotus according to which bodies gain complexity as they grow and gain particles, and with added complexity they generate "relational" or secondary properties beyond the conventional "atoms and void" properties--both of which are observable and real. The real, observable self emerges organically as symbiosis, as complex systems (like all else in nature), not as a Platonic "Casper" without a body.

http://societyofepicurus.com/a-concrete-self/

I addressed this in a piece for The Humanist, but from the perspective of "right to die" only in cases of terminal illness

https://thehumanist.com/magazine/may-j…rstand-epicurus

Welcome to the group!

Quote from Matthaeus

Obviously an allegorical god is not the same thing as a real “atomic” god. The issue is that Epicurus himself posits that the gods are in fact real.

Hola Mateo! While I grant your point, here you touch on something interesting. Allegorical and atomic deities are not mutually contradictory, and in your persistent concern with theology you have abandoned the utility and purpose of religious experience, which is to help us experience pure, effortless pleasure.

When Lucretius says that all of nature opens up in spring FOR Venus, he is clearly not referring to a goddess with a physical body that dwells outside of the galaxies. He is using the religious image to induce pleasure, in-spiration.

"associated with the whole organism or the dominant parts of it" tells me that pleasure happens IN THE BODY (even mental pleasures), that (different parts of) the body have the wisdom to produce (different types of) pleasure, and that any study of the variation of pleasure must be bodily rooted.

Also: We can't experience intense pleasure 24-7 because we have to sleep, plus ***the experience of intense pleasure requires intense energy consumption***. Take the orgasm, and consider the after-effect, the post-coital fatigue that comes from reaching the intensity of orgasm. This fatigue is indicative that a HUGE AMOUNT of energy was just consumed by the brain and the body in producing that experience. And so we conclude from observation that intense pleasures require energy, which is not unlimited.

Because the body only has a limited supply of energy available, we conclude that nature has placed certain limits to the amount of pleasure the organism can experience.

Also, concerning the neuroscience of pleasure, you may want to read "Buddha's Brain". I wrote a book review here:

http://societyofepicurus.com/reasonings-about-neuroscience/

AND concerning the impossibility of inaction, consider this:

Quote

Most men are insensible when they rest, and mad when they act. – Vatican Saying 11

which (I think) means that most people need to learn or train themselves to experience pleasure both while active and passive, and that therefore Epicurean philosophy presumably is part of that curriculum.

When we study the brain in this manner, we frequently speak as if the organism was a passive recipient or processes and there was no agency (this is probably part of what leads many like Sam Harris to conclude there is no free will--simply because they don't know how to fully account for how this agency emerges, but the fact is that it is there). It's as if you couldn't choose to take five minutes to stop, draw a deep breath, engage in a gratitude practice, and reset your attitude from time to time. Attitude regulation is a HUGE part of Epicurean practice, if we are to believe Diogenes of Oenoanda and Philodemus of Gadara, and I am convinced that without gratitude it is impossible to profit from EP.

So the factor of how does the sentient being actively engage in the production of his or her narrative must also be considered, and not merely the processes in the brain and the body that produce pleasure.

Daniel you'll like this piece:

http://societyofepicurus.com/venus-as-spiri…dom-traditions/

PW has featured “How to live a Good Life”, which will include a chapter on Epicurean Philosophy

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/in…or-meaning.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epicureanism/comments/b3eqed/a_thought_on_how_freedom_from_distress_can_be_the/

http://societyofepicurus.com/hygge-and-the-…pe-of-pleasure/

Feta is Greek. But you can also consume local cheese and crackers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epicureanism…_vs_asceticism/

I wish we had answers to all your questions. No one has done marketing research on EP, I try to see trends and have only found that reddit brings in huge traffic to the SoFE webpage and others. How much of that traffic = steady interest, it's hard to tell. It seems to me that very few people develop a sustained interest in EP.

Pamphlets and Brochures here:

http://societyofepicurus.com/shareable-epicurean-memes/

https://medium.com/@stevengambard…us-d140d6ef44f7

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epicureanism…e_in_the_bible/

Read the letter to

Menoeceus https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/hap…ics-the-ethics/

It's possible that the explicit worship of Aphrodite is not as strong anywhere today as it is in Brasil where she's known as Oxum (in Cuba she's Ochún, in Yorubaland, Nigeria she's Oshun). There are hospitals, temples, festivals in her honor. Here's a Candomble chant for her:

It is said that she is the Orisha (deity) that makes life worth living, which gives her a special place obviously in the ethical philosophy of Candomble because she refreshes and "sweetens the world" with her "sweet waters" of the river (the bitter / salty waters of the ocean belong to Yemayá) … these days I'm trying to stay away from the "bitter waters" of politics and drink more of the sweet waters of Oxum.

This is generating opportunities for discussion with curious readers on the /philosophy subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/c…3_quarks_daily/

I don't think we need MORE than water and toast if we have the right disposition

also ElementalEpicureanism.com

Here's a book review for TteG:

https://thehumanist.com/magazine/janua…picurean-garden

and here's a Spanish language curriculum

https://sociedadepicuro.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/iti…dios-epicureos/