I remember that we discussed trying to plot things out in the past, and see this is mentioned in this thread / post from 2019,
In that discussion we were talking plotting out duration of life in relation to pleasure predominating over pain, if I recall correctly
It's probably still worth experimenting with various scenarios by actual plotting of diagrams at some point.
Yeah, it looks like I'm not the only person that thought of using a normal curve to describe pleasure. Normal curves can be used to describe all sorts of things. And are!
Anybody coming across this thread and getting motivated to plot some bell curves might want to also consult the earlier thread in which a "spreadsheet" was discussed:
PostA Draft Epicurean Pleasure Maximization Worksheet
Feelings cannot be reduced to numbers, and there are important limitations in the use of a "worksheet" as an aid in evaluating choices and avoidances. However it may be helpful to some people to visualize an illustration of the weighing process that some term the "hedonic calculus." Here is a draft example for your consideration and comment. Scores included here are of course fictional and for example only. A version of the spreadsheet in xlsx format is attached for downloading.
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CassiusJuly 11, 2019 at 10:25 PM Even though pictoral and mathematical representations are limited, and cannot possibly capture the "feelings" that are involved in pleasure and pain, I continue to think that the process of working through them is useful, especially in that trying to formulate them emphasizes *how* in the end a mathematical analysus cannot hope to capture in objective form the full human pleasure/pain evaluation, which is inherently subjective, especially as to "mental" pleasure and pain.
Wow! That worksheet is really numerically specific! I wonder how you get specific numbers for pleasure.
As far as the worksheet is concerned, I can see your point. I don't think you can quantify pleasure that specifically either.
The Normal curve though is pretty generalized and follows Epicurus' idea's well IMO.