Posts by Elayne

Cassius, I believe I've used the term ET/extraterrestrial, but I meant it in s neutral way-- just as beings not on earth but on another planet.

I think it's quite possible some beings like that are out there. On the other hand, I never think of them unless someone else brings it up. I have never spent any time worrying about the place of humans in the cosmos, so for me, it's just an interesting idea that doesn't change my life. I don't know how they evolved to live as they live, if they are out there, so it's hard to know how to copy them exactly.

What inspires me more is humans who live pleasurably, including Epicurus, because that means I don't have to be a highly evolved being, a god, to have a pleasurable life! A regular human can do it. It's accessible. Whereas thinking about beings much more advanced than we are makes it seem out of reach to me.

But if that particular thought pleases you, it will likely please others, so I will keep it in mind!

And the reason, of course, that I say one can have dogma but still make observations and be willing to adjust the dogma is that dogma is only in service of pleasure!

So if using the new information leads to technology that enhances pleasure, such as us being able to communicate from far away as we are doing now, then it needs to be included in the dogma.

If new information causes prior dogma to conflict with reality as is currently understood, allowing opponents to accuse us of inaccuracies, then this can result in people doubting the whole philosophy, if parts that needed updating were not updated. And this will result in loss of pleasure for them.

Incorporating new observations does not conflict with the philosophy-- it's required, really, by the Canon, to know what is true and what isn't, in service of making pleasurable choices.

That's why I think it's important to study 😃.

I don't think that was true either. After all, I am positive he didn't just sit down one day and write out all his conclusions about nature, lol! He had so many observations that it would have been an extended process of observation and choosing each element. It would surely have been a dynamic, exciting process. People forget that had to have happened and see him as being static in his thought process. A person like him, who said to study nature always, would not have shut off his brain once he arrived at conclusions. Even while teaching a dogma, if new observations had conflicted with his model, he would have investigated further, not ignored it. It's possible to both have a dogma and continue to observe!

If his philosophy had been kept alive continuously, new observations could have been evaluated and either discarded or incorporated. Now we are playing catch up.

Sometimes I imagine Epicurus looking at the information we have now-- thrilled over some of it and quick to add it to his physics, and rolling his eyes where theories have far outstripped the observations. And how much fun it would be to sift through it all beside him.

We don't have him, but we have each other!

I agree... I think the difference now, for cosmology in particular, is not that there's more than one theory that fits all the evidence but no theory which does explain all the existing observations. And I don't know exactly what he would do with that, because he wasn't faced with it. It's a different problem than having the luxury of multiple good theories.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/c…e-big-problems/

What I was thinking is that the arguments might be easier to communicate on the smaller scale, at the particle level, than at the cosmology level. And I think that's the tack Stenger takes, if I remember right.

And just to be clear-- in no way would I want to make anything Epicurus didn't say a criterion. Just thinking that to follow in his footsteps, it would be nice to use current physics to show new people they definitely don't have to worry about anything supernatural. To show that not only hasn't any new observation undone his main conclusion about a material universe but that the case has been made even stronger.

I think it's in one of his other books that he lays out the case for no supernaturalism... not sure which. He wrote so many!

I think we can lay out the case without making cosmology assertions where Epicurus would be under reasonable challenge. I don't want to say the case rests on those things, because it doesn't. But it will take some work, for sure!

Ok, I get what you are saying. It's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who would find any of the unsolved parts alarming, but it may be true.

However, then the problem remains that we have data Epicurus didn't have-- and now his model no longer fits ALL the observed data. It's not just that we are missing data, in case you thought that was the problem -- it's also that we now have data that doesn't fit. So we can no longer use it in the same way he was able to, the way you are describing. We would have to say "our model doesn't fit everything we've observed but we bet there's something amiss with the observations that don't fit, that they are illusory somehow." And that would be a disaster IMO. The stuff that doesn't fit might be misunderstood, but a theory can't survive on that basis.

That is why I think it's more helpful to tell people no matter what, there's no supernatural-- if they are on that simple of a thought process, maybe we can take Vic Stenger's stuff and simplify it. I don't know. I feel sure Epicurus could have done it but Idk if I can, lol.

That's interesting, Cassius-- I don't read Hitchens' words that way at all. He was a thorough atheist. Impenetrable for him definitely did not imply the supernatural. The supernatural is ruled out. I think he was talking about the sense of wonder over nature.

In the article I linked earlier, there is mention of a possibility that some kind of "fluctuation" in a vacuum resulted in matter-- a possible beginning which would not include a god. How would it happen? I don't know, but not knowing is no reason to stick a supernatural god in it as a placeholder since there's absolutely zero evidence for one.

The universe as infinite and eternal doesn't quite fit all the data either, if I understand correctly, with the models so far. Neither does a finite universe or one with a beginning. No model yet has fit everything observed-- the "theory of everything" is the grail of physics. Doesn't mean we can never figure it out, but that's different from saying "that means supernatural gods can exist." I know it sounds related, but it isn't exactly. There's not a god-sized hole in any of the theories. Difficulties understanding the exact nature of time, for instance, don't leave room for the supernatural.

This is one of those places where either I'm different from Epicurus or he would have taken physics data he didn't have access to back then into account and said that we have at least gotten enough info to be very certain there's no supernatural and no absolute. Both of us would feel equally secure in that knowledge even if we arrived at our conclusions differently.

As I see it, my process is to pragmatically accept as fact those things which have no evidence to the contrary, such as a fully material universe (and thus no absolute morality)

while leaving open for study those aspects which are unclear, such as cosmology. I won't reject any theories that fit available data as wrong just because of a concept I have-- but there's no theory fitting available data that has any supernatural or ideal realm in it, so Epicurus is still on very solid ground with the observation that absolute morality is nonsense.

Cassius, I advise caution in saying that there would be any scientific discovery we would reject on the grounds that someone would use it to insert their god of the gaps. We are wisest to base knowledge on evidence, not worry about trying to get evidence to exclude religionists. No creator is needed for the various Big Bang scenarios, nor would one fit in. Unless, as I think Vic Stenger has said, the universe would be the same with or without said god's actions, ha ha!

If we go the direction of excluding explanations that fit observed data "on principle" instead of continuing to test those observations, then we will back ourselves into a sort of flat-earther corner if one of those explanations is correct. And we will attract mainly people who reject evidence in favor of ideology, eventually.

I feel extremely confident that the universe is material and without a basis for absolute ethics. There's really nothing in any of the current theories that would turn that upside down.

There is no way to _ever_ stop supernaturalists from misunderstanding or twisting evidence around. The New Agers do stuff like take Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as implying that we can stop the fires in Australia by concentrating on them at the same time. Or that because elements that compose our bodies are constantly interchanging with the environment-- as I think Dawkins said, there's a high chance that a glass of water today contains a molecule that once passed through Oliver Cromwell-- this proves we are all one person, tada!

That level of woo-woo ness is impossible to prevent, so it's a waste of time to even consider, IMO.

Cassius, why can't the universe be both expanding and infinite? I don't think those two things are necessarily in conflict? Here's an article about that. I can't go to the primary research for this, because it's so far out of my area. I have to use sources for laypeople. But what this article describes makes sense. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/…rse-really-mean

If Epicurus was wrong and the universe is finite, however, it still doesn't change that there is no supernatural needed to explain any part of reality. None of the interesting possibilities change anything about the material nature of reality and how we humans perceive it. None of the cosmological theories set up a basis for absolute ethics.

Cassius, that last bit about it not mattering whether you are quickly task switching is what I was about to say. The way our brains work is to smooth out extremely rapid changes of attention so that it makes "sense"-- for instance, we think we are looking at a whole room at once when really our visual fields can't do that. Our brains fill in the rest. That's why the gorilla on the basketball court video tricks people, because their brains fill in the rest. If you read some of the neuroscience oddities, you run into bizarre things like baseball players seeing themselves hit the ball, which couldn't have happened until after-- but the brain re-orders the events.

Anyway not to get too far afield-- I doubt we can truly pay attention to two feelings at the exact same millisecond, but we switch back and forth much faster than we are capable of recognizing. So it might as well be simultaneous, for practical purposes. It doesn't change anything about what we decide.

Sensory input, however, does not require our conscious awareness to be used by the brain. Experienced drivers can get distracted and drive home, avoiding obstacles, without having paid any attention. The brain is constantly dealing with sensory input. The room temperature, for instance-- we can notice it, but even if we don't, our body's thermoregulation still takes air temperature into account.

oh, is this just Bertrand Russell being read out loud by someone? I couldn't figure out why what you said sounded familiar but you're quoting Russell. He has gotten a lot of Epicurus wrong... all that stuff about living solely on bread and water when the man had a garden in Greece and held feasts every month. The misunderstanding of Epicurus on pain and pleasure... Russell didn't appear to have understood Epicurus to me. He was covering a huge amount of philosophy territory but superficially. We've talked about Russell before, I think. But maybe not in one place. He might need his own section.

Here is the text if anyone wants to read instead of listen. For me, reading is many times faster.

http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Hi…0Philosophy.pdf

On the science, I'm not aware of Epicurus accepting an answer which had been proven incorrect (different from saying all the possible explanations were material and that this was all that mattered) but if he did, I would have to disagree with that strategy, because an error in describing reality could lead to errors in planning pleasure.

I don't have time today to watch it, but I will later. I don't have any interest in science on its own account either! I'm interested in it because of pleasure-- the pleasure of learning, the way the study of nature can help me predict outcomes of decisions more effectively, and some of the pleasurable technologies that have come about through research. However, some technologies have also created pain or fear, so I'd be very specific about them.

I do know that Epicurus recommended studying nature. The scientific method had not been developed yet, but he did make multiple observations of human nature, in a systematic framework -- our motives for action-- which I would consider important.

I don't consider any part of science important unless it adds to my pleasure. I have not personally added much to the total of knowledge about nature, and if someone used that as a criticism against me, I don't really care, since that's not a standard I'm trying to meet. How would you decide how much added knowledge counts as a significant advance, or even what's an advance and what isn't, if pleasure isn't the goal?

Epicurus was not an empiricist in that he included prolepses in his Canon of how we know what is real. DeWitt talks about this. It's consistent with developmental research showing humans are born with innate pattern recognition but even beyond that to a sort of innate pattern expectation, the same way sea turtles hatch knowing not just to notice but to look for which way to go to the sea.

However, that is different from insisting on impossible things just because they show up in one's imagination, and a reality based philosophy would not accept an interpretation of an innate intuition that has been shown clearly inaccurate. I don't know which way Epicurus would go, if he had access to the physics we have now.

There's a difference in stating Epicurus meant to be idealist or atheist when he was clearly realist, vs giving one's own position about gods. I read Epicurus as a realist, and I am pragmatically speaking an atheist, although I wouldn't categorically say that extremely long lived and blissful ETs are impossible. I'm not sure there is firm agreement on what happens after expansion of the universe, whether it's one and done or recurring, and if it is possible there could be some configuration of matter we have not thought of that could be conscious and survive in either case. It seems unlikely. I don't really spend any time thinking about it unless it comes up here.

Just because O'Keefe says a thing doesn't make true. Idealism is a ridiculous position contradicted by reality. Allowing that into your definition of Epicurean stretches the meaning beyond comprehension. You can do that to any label you want to, of course, but it removes any claim to consistency or coherence.

This is definitely worth discussing.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I consider my own philosophy to be "the philosophy of reality"-- some aspects of reality are not changed by conversations among friends, such as the speed of light, but others are, such as the feelings of those in the conversation. Sometimes the conversation may include discussion of research evidence that affects parts of the philosophy.

I consider Epicurus' writing to be the gold standard for what he meant, and I agree with him to the extent he was correct about reality, according to how his words have held up after centuries of ongoing scientific research and my own briefer subjective experience. I've personally found him to be amazingly on point in a startling array of conclusions, but not infallible. If none of his words were incorrect, I would wonder if I'd been brainwashed, because I don't think that's humanly possible. His basic structure is sturdy. When he talks about the stomach not being insatiable, that's certainly how it is for me-- if he said hunger couldn't be satisfied, I would say for sure, he was wrong about me!

For everyone after him who goes by the identifier Epicurean, if their words conflict with reality _and _ Epicurus, I would say they don't have grounds for self-identifying that way, although I cannot stop them. If they conflict with Epicurus but are reality based, my guess is that he would have accepted compelling new evidence and wouldn't have a problem. If they stick with Epicurus but ignore modern physics, they are more in the religious category than me, for sure, and I think but can't prove that he would not be impressed.

Basically, the test of any philosophy should be its compatibility with evidence. And since reality was the core of his philosophy, it's hard for me to think of anything non reality based as Epicurean. Conversations among friends can lead to nonsense if not grounded in evidence.

Ok Hiram, the first study on runners and meditators was small and methods are behind a paywall, but the purpose was to correlate mood changes with CRH, corticotropin releasing hormone, using the stimuli of running vs meditation, and they found no differences between the runners and the meditators. Both groups were highly skilled so self-selected for liking the activity. Would have interesting if they'd crossed it over, lol, and had the meditators run, etc. It's hard to generalize pleasure obtained by a group who already know they like an activity to a random person. But it goes with the idea that if an individual likes an activity, they'll get pleasure from doing it and there will be biochemical evidence of that.

I wouldn't advise citing that study as evidence for benefit of meditation-- that wasn't the study question.

The one on gray matter changes did have full access. It was also very small, 20 meditators and 15 controls, and they were testing a hypothesis that specific areas of the cortex would be thicker in meditators. Although more would need to be done to confirm, that wouldn't be surprising -- it would fit with other research showing brain changes with activity. There was not any overall thickening of the cortex. Just in specific regions.

But then they did what appears to be a post-hoc analysis (not in their original hypothesis) of age-related changes, looking for correlations by age group, and this made the comparison groups even smaller. Post-hoc analysis gets called the spaghetti method-- throw the data on the wall and see what sticks. It's considered bad form because what looks like a pattern is more often not there in attempts to replicate. So I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that part.

None of that really has anything to do with pleasure though. We'd need to ask the subjects about that, to know if cortex thickening correlates with pleasure. I've never seen that specific question asked but it's not my area, so maybe it has been.

I hate to say it, but the state of medical research is very very poor. People are publishing to get tenure and promotions. If you read Cochrane reviews on a question, generally they will say things like "we located 500 studies on x thing. 495 did not meet criteria for study design (not blinded, etc) and the 5 remaining were too small to draw any conclusions from." I'm exaggerating a little, but it is pretty pitiful.

Anytime you want my feedback on a study you want to cite in a paper or book in the future, I'm happy to look at it if not behind a paywall.

I think it was mentioned in this book, which I no longer have, so I can't say anything about the quality of the research. But I sure have had the feeling of knowing. http://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_ce…e_not_63166.htm

I would say knowledge is awareness of information (obtained through senses, feelings and/or prolepses) which a person feels sufficiently sure about to say "I know x thing". "Sufficiently" often in a subjective way. But in science, according more to accepted requirements for independent replication.

I read quite some time ago about a "sense of knowing " which could be triggered by stimulating the brain directly. Without any content-- the person would be suddenly struck with a feeling of certainty but not knowing about what! Very weird. I'll see if I can find it. My intuition is that there _is_ a sensation of knowing, or at least I myself experience that (although always with a topic).

I think of it as a prolepsis. Some kind of pattern recognition in the brain that kicks off when a piece of information has satisfied whatever criteria the pattern needs. And of course unless you are going by statistical rules, this will vary from one person to another. Some people require a lot more input before they feel "sure" and others leap right to it.

Right now, I "know" the street that is always outside my condo is there. This is my "fast brain", also sometimes called system 1-- I'm not thinking hard about it, but if someone said "hey, do you think the street is still there?" I would immediately say "what? Of course it is" and have no feeling of doubt. If you pushed me on it, I'd eventually say ok, whatever, maybe a silent bulldozer just came by and removed it-- I'm not looking at it, after all. But that's so far-fetched as to not be worth bothering with. I _know_, pragmatically speaking, and that's good enough.

Words are easier to define for me like that, with examples, in context. I think everyone here knows what knowledge means, lol. I would avoid getting wrapped up in one of those definition things that goes into recursive absurdity.

I still maintain that nothing about knowledge requires removal of the subjective.

I understand Epicurus' dogmatism and the reasons for it. For myself, the philosophy of reality is more compatible with pragmatism, which is very different from skepticism. It allows me as a scientist to be open to new data but still accept facts-- I forget who said it, maybe Feynman, but facts are knowledge so well replicated that it would be "perverse to say otherwise." Practically speaking, it's close enough to dogmatism that I'm not bothered by dogmatism. Whereas skepticism annoys the stew out of me. 😆