Posts by Elayne

Ha, it's thundering here, so I will write a little more.

I need to reword the death comment--didn't intend to imply that there's anything after death, just that it's the only complete end of both pleasure and pain. Until then, one or both of those is always present.

On happiness, I see I made an error-- I meant to say maximum happiness was a pleasurable feeling resulting from maximizing pleasure in all areas of life-- basically, it is pleasure of having the full cup of pleasures, or at least more pleasure than not, especially in regards to the life time "movie" of that cup. Without including maximum, I've inadvertently left out more ordinary situations. By saying it is a pleasurable feeling, I do not believe I have left room for it to be other than pleasure, and I'm not sure how that could be derived. We have all sorts of different sources of the pleasure feeling, and the response to awareness that our life's cup is mostly full of pleasure is itself a pleasure. I will say that at least that's what I mean by happiness. The feeling is the same as for other pleasures, but the stimulus is specific.

Maybe I could just reword it as "happiness is the feeling of pleasure that comes from awareness that one's lifetime cup is more full of pleasure than pain."

On absence of pain/fullness of pleasure, I am baffled by your answer-- it seems like you are disagreeing with the synonymous aspect, although you say you aren't, and I can't get a grasp on your train of thought. I would tell the person who says minimizing pain results in maximum pleasure that he is correct, and then I'd ask how he plans go go about it. If it is by withdrawing from activity, and he wouldn't listen to my advice that this will result in more pain, not less, then I'd tell him to check in with me in a year, earlier when he gets bored.

If he asked me how to minimize pain, of course it depends on the situation he is in, but I would give him ways to maximize pleasure, and tell him it is the exact same end result, and IMO, _easier_ to approach actively by seeking pleasure than by only withdrawing from pain. But if the withdrawing did result in minimum pain, it would have worked just as well. There should be no difference at all.

I'm not even trying here to describe what pleasure feels like, if that's the issue--that's like trying to describe "sweet." If they don't know the feeling of pleasure by adulthood, I can't imagine I would be able to help them out. There isn't any sufficient description, IMO, other than by using synonyms.

On the size of the cup... I guess this is just me seeing the metaphor differently. I don't see the cup as representing numbers of experiences but the organism's feeling capacity. I don't think it helps to imagine people's cups of different sizes, if the cup represents feelings. Because then you'd have to say, well your cup might be full of pleasure but it's too small, so you aren't having enough. And how would you know? How would you measure it, if they are saying nope, I'm in total bliss here-- how can you say they could have more, based on an outside assessment of their activities? If they aren't having enough pleasure, their cup isn't full, rather than being too small-- they still have pain.

Instead of restricted experience shrinking the cup of feeling, I would see it as the cup being in mostly a pain state, perhaps of low intensity boredom.

Cassius, thank you for your comments-- it will be likely Monday before I have time to give a full response.

I will throw out there, though, that although pleasure is felt at all normal times as a response to a specific experience (as is pain), I think the activity itself is not the pleasure or the pain. My first reason to think so is that the same activity under different conditions of the same person can be pleasurable or painful. This gives the nervous system a more flexible, accurate way to indicate to us the desirability of whatever it is we are doing, in different circumstances.

The second reason I think that is the issue that under abnormal circumstances, a sensation of pleasure can be somewhat unhinged from a direct action. I can think of two ways to do this-- electrical stimulation of the brain during surgery, and drugs which bind to the pleasure neurotransmitter receptors in an abnormal way, causing prolonged feelings of pleasure with no other cause than the drug.

Although actions-- electrical stimulation and drug taking-- did initiate the feelings of pleasure, the feelings are not being produced through the normal pathways and are not serving as a useful feedback about the health and safety of the action. It is not so much that the person is enjoying the action but that artificial bypassing of the natural feedback system is going on. It's not at all the same type of pleasure-action association, neurologically, as pleasurable reading.

This is similar to a "sense of knowing", where electrical stimulation of the brain can cause a person to feel they "know something", a sense of certainty, but without any content.

I do completely agree that we know pleasure when we feel it, and that normally it's a result of activity, but not that it "is" the activity.

Ok, that's the last of it. The differences between my perspective and Cassius, as I understand it, are:

1) Cassius does not think absence of pain in a living person is synonymous with fullness of pleasure. IMO this would require a third state, neutral, which I do not believe actually exists.

2) Cassius proposes that the cup itself can be enlarged to admit more pleasures. I would take the position I understand meant by Epicurus saying that once the cup is full, it only admits variations.

Please discuss the Article "On Pleasure Pain and Happiness" in the thread below (rather than in the comments under the article)

Besides the aspects of intensity, duration, etc-- perhaps add the "extent" or some word to describe whether the pleasure involves as many aspects for the person as possible? I'm thinking of PD 9, where he talks about if all pleasures could involve the entire person or the "principal parts"-- which suggests he was thinking of some pleasures only involving parts of us.

An example of a widespread (?) pleasurable experience to me would be listening to some favorite music while eating a bowl of cut fresh tomatoes and reading a good book. I've got all my senses involved-- hearing, vision, smell, texture, taste... plus my cognitions on the book. Whereas some pleasures, even if intense, may not occupy very many senses or cognitive faculties. I personally find that experiences which involve more faculties seem heightened in a way that seems different from intensity.

I think I would avoid trying to revert to a former or esoteric meaning of atheism, personally. I don't think Epicurus would go for that, because it would create confusion. But we may need more discussion to come to a consensus.

I would stick to defining words which have a current conflicting opinion. I think there are two main terms that need defining-- eudaemonia, which is what I really think most normal people imagine when they hear the word happiness in English, even if they don't say so-- and agency/ free will. I suspect we need actually to have brief articles on those two terms.

Here are some ideas. The atheist one bothers me somewhat, because the current meaning of this is absence of belief in supernatural gods. So here again I feel we are getting into issues of mistranslation into modern English because of attachment to older language. I would prefer that we use the modern meaning of atheist, a label I do apply to myself.

1. Not "the greatest good for the greatest number," but “to all desires must be applied this question: What will be the result for me if the object of this desire is attained and what if it will not?”

2. Not "humanism", “individualism”, “collectivism”, “egoism” or “altruism”, but “the tie of friendship knits itself through reciprocity of favors among those who have come to enjoy pleasures to the full.”

3. Not "hard determinism" but “some things happen from necessity, some from chance, and others through our own choice.” (see paper on Agency)

4. Not "short term hedonism" but “it is to continuous pleasures that I invite you.”

5. Not "absence of pain" as a full statement of the goal of life, but “the Feelings are two, pleasure and pain” and “Pleasure is the beginning and the end of a happy life.”

6. Not "living unknown" as best way to organize one's life, but “friendship dances around the world summoning us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness.”

7. Not "creation by a supernatural being”, but matter which is uncreatable and indestructible. In modern physics, this takes the form of the First Law of Thermodynamics: energy is neither created not destroyed but only changes form. One form of energy is matter. It seems unlikely Epicurus would disagree.

8. Not "faith" but "constant activity in the study of Nature”

9. Not "individualism" or "collectivism" but (I combined these in 2)

10. Not "egoism" or "altruism" but (combined in #2)

11. Not "idealism" based on reason, but “not even reason can refute the sensations, for reason depends wholly upon them.”
12. Not "atheism" or “supernaturalism”, but a fully material universe with the possibility of continuously happy beings, and “for those men for whom wisdom is possible, and who do seek it, such men may truly live as gods.” My preference would be: Not belief in supernatural gods but... and the rest the same. Leave atheism out of it, and accept that living people who use that word are referring to supernatural gods only.

“The wise man alone will know true gratitude and in respect of his friends, whether present or absent, will be the same throughout the journey of life.” Epicurus, DL, trans. Hicks, 10.118.

Sometimes a post from The Daily Stoic shows up in my newsfeed, and usually I ignore it... but every so often, I check to see what the Stoics are up to. Today’s bit of unwise advice is to distrust your friends, because everybody lies. If they say they are enjoying life, they are probably lying, so no need to ask them how they have accomplished their joy—you can be safe knowing they are just as miserable as you. https://dailystoic.com/assume-everyone-is-lying/

What a miserable way to live! Of course, sometimes people lie—but that does not mean everyone lies all the time, or that there are no deeply honest people—people who say the same thing whether they are with friends or alone in the room. Sometimes people do not broadcast their unhappiness online, but this also does not mean the pleasures they post are not real or that there are no people who are truly having an enjoyable life.

Sometimes, after being betrayed by someone who pretended to be an honest friend but who was not, we may feel like believing we can’t trust anyone at all. But that is a path to a sad, painful life, without the true friendship which is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Let us seek to find friends whom we trust and with whom we will be trustworthy and honest about our lives, so that we may enjoy ourselves together. Parents, I advise you to teach your children from an early age how to recognize honest people and how to be honest themselves, by demonstrating your own honesty in their presence.

In your comments, I invite you to give examples of the pleasures of honesty among friends, from your own lives. If you are a parent, how have you taught your children about this pleasure?

*** This is a potential post in my planned "The Daily Epicurean Parent" website, from which I will eventually construct the book I've discussed earlier. Any editing suggestions are welcome!

I like this idea, and especially focusing on applying the philosophy in everyday life! The most obvious times it comes into play are when we make decisions-- sometimes big life decisions, but also small ones. It seems to me that the small decisions often add up to the most effect in overall happiness. When someone wants to be happier, I think their daily schedule is the first place to start.

Oh, yes, I agree that working with the public is often pleasant-- I enjoy meeting most of the families in my practice! And unlike Tolstoy, I find their stories of happiness to be more fascinating and variable than their stories of sadness, which tend for me to be mostly similar.

I think we are in full agreement that there is no strict correlation between skill level as an abstract quality, minus specifics, and pleasure... but what I meant to say is that for certain specific situations, more skill can bring more pleasure. "It depends" is probably my most accurate answer.

Customer service is a great example of a skill that can make one's life significantly more pleasant! Both for the person in the job and the customer. There is an older woman who works at the driver's license photo desk where I live, who always seems to be in a great mood. She goes through this brief routine with every person-- she says "I want you to have a photo you like!" She has them roll their shoulders and neck, take a big breath, relax and smile. This puts everyone in the line in a good mood, so they are easier for her to work with too. I actually enjoy going to update my license photo, because I look forward to the friendliness of that room. I do the same thing with my patients-- I greet them with a big smile, and if I know them, an offer of a quick hug. That changes everything about the rest of the visit, so it is a skill worth getting very good at, for me. No mediocre smiling, lol!

I have the home page bookmarked but I don't look at it-- the red numbers on the top menu by Forum and Gallery, or sometimes at notifications-- that is where I go, to see what I haven't read.

JJ, I would say the pleasure or pain is in the details, and I am hesitant to generalize about specialization, lol.

Which approach works best for pleasure depends on the temperament of the individual, the skill level, and the resources of the social environment. For instance, a one-instrument specialist who achieves remarkable skill, such that he can be sufficiently paid, and who does not get bored with that one instrument and in fact prefers it to something like hog butchering-- that person would be well advised to keep on specializing. He can contract out the generalist work.

But if there are not people around who can cook his food, tile his floor, etc, to the standard he wants done... perhaps he would be happier to put some of those practice hours into a few other skills.

Most people would probably classify me as a generalist, in that I have a wider than typical variety of interests and skills-- I do not have a single-minded passion that I have pursued. However, this has not for me translated to mediocrity of skill level for all of those interests. For some or maybe even most, sure. For instance, I've done competition ballroom but remain very much an amateur-- I did it just for fun, and that attitude was a big part of what made it fun. I had no concern about the outcome, other than not injuring my partner. I don't need to earn money with it. Same with singing-- I can stay on pitch, harmonize, and do solos in my Chorus, but I am not interested in becoming a professional level singer.

For other things, it is relatively easy to become highly skilled without all that much time investment. For instance, I have hand-made quilts with 14 even stitches per inch, exactly cut and pieced-- because you can't get more exact to the unaided eye, after a certain point. And because I have done so much cooking, I have a feel for it, and I can out do most restaurant meals for a small group. I'm not saying I'm top chef-- but neither am I anywhere close to mediocre. Getting good at cooking has paid off big time in terms of pleasure, on a daily basis! Along the way, because of curiosity, I have learned to do things like roast my own coffee in my garage, using a drum roaster. That's something you can spend a LOT of time learning, but even a moderate time investment pays off with an amazing jump in pleasure of taste, well beyond mediocre.

In my pediatric work, I am a "general pediatrician"-- but in this case, because the amount of available knowledge is not as much as you might think, and because I am constitutionally curious, I have taken time to learn a lot of depth about many of the body systems. The only things I need to refer to specialists are for procedures I don't know how to do-- I didn't train to do surgery, EEGs, etc. However, the depth of knowledge I can access about the various organ systems is substantial, and I have taken advantage of that... plus, unlike the specialist, I am able to put findings in one system into context with the whole body-- which has led to my occasionally making diagnoses that excellent specialists completely missed.

Sometimes, I have known things that specialists in a field did not know, even in their field-- for instance, when one of my family members had what looked like a low neutrophil count, which was a known side effect of the medication he was taking, his specialist was alarmed. He was going to stop the medication, which was the only thing so far that had helped my family member. However, because of my wide-ranging reading habits, I remembered a phenomenon with this particular medication where the morning blood count can differ from the afternoon, and if the afternoon count is normal there is no need to worry. Pseudoneutropenia. I brought the specialist the articles, he rechecked my family member's lab test in the afternoon, and it was all fine.

If a person is a generalist in several activities with reasonably accessible depth of skill for moderate time investment, it is possible to be as good or nearly as good as a specialist who chooses only one activity. The difference will show up more if it is a specialty where the time needed to excel would rule out many additional activities.

What caught my eye was that pleasures are only "generally good", when it is actually that the pleasures themselves are always good but that sometimes pains come along with certain pleasure-bringing actions and thus those actions are not advisable. It's not the pleasure that's the problem at all-- it's the entire consequences of the action. That might sound like a quibbling distinction but I don't think it is minor. Because sometimes one can modify the results of an action so that the pleasures remain and the pains are lessened or removed.

What I understand JJ to be saying is that slavery would not come under the category "justice" if if does not involve some type of mutual agreement, a contract which is at least implied, between the two parties. I agree completely. The use of force does not qualify as a contract. That is different from classifying it by a universal standard of right and wrong, different from popular concepts of "fairness", and different from an assessment of the consequences in terms of pain/ pleasure-- it's only saying it doesn't meet the definition of contractual justice as Epicurus used that terminology.

There were two people in my Meetup group, out of several who signed up and fewer who actually came, whom I thought might work out... and that would have been ok to start with. Even ONE actual Epicurean in my area would be great, lol! But after we met a few times, it became clear we were not anywhere near to being on the same page, and that they were not willing to spend the time to study on their own between meetings. That wouldn't be so much of an issue if I had a core group to start with, of at least somewhat similar perspectives.

Given the preponderance of competing philosophies, it may be much harder than I had thought to find people who are open to this philosophy, much less people who already get it.

One mistake I made was that the group was not set up in a hierarchical manner. This is mainly because I consider myself a self-led person, but I dislike having followers... I prefer other self-led friends. In the past, when I have done public political things, a crowd of almost groupie-like people tried to glom onto me, and it was quite irritating-- they were more interested in some kind of weird hero worship than they were in doing anything substantial themselves. They didn't treat me like a real person but more of a projection. So I did not set things up where I was clearly the leader of the meetup group--- I wanted it to be more lateral than vertical. But that doesn't work well when the others are so unfamiliar with the subject matter.

Bradley, when I get farther along (which may be slow due to my other activities), I would be interested in interviewing you! I hope, as Cassius suggested, that you will also post on this forum how your philosophy affects your interactions with your children! I will not quote anything without permission.

VS 76 sounds like one of those sayings where the specific context matters, so I would just be guessing. When I read DeWitt, I realized how important the contexts were. For myself personally, when I study for my own pleasure, that automatically includes wanting the pleasure of those I'm close to. Not a whole country. But on the other hand, I suspect that if a substantial number of citizens in my country decided to practice EP, the outcome would likely increase my freedom of choice and thus my options for pleasure.

Beautiful! This exactly!

Hi JJ-- cool info about Whitman!

I read a few years ago that Whitman was interested in phrenology-- a popular idea in his time that one could discern character from bumps on the skull. And that this is where some of the language in his poetic self description originated. Phrenology was discredited, but I still love what he did with all that. You may already know this-- here's a link in case not.

I mention that because I have noticed that there is a wide range of inquiry in that general field of embodied consciousness-- some credible and some woowoo. It's a fascinating subject!

https://whitmanarchive.org/archive1/class…ntroduction.htm

Cassius, I will likely need your help when I get to the point of including some of the historical documents/ translations-- I think my main focus will be on how the basic structure of the philosophy applies to raising children, but it will be stronger if I include specific historical references. Most likely I will write initially from my pediatric knowledge/ experience, which agrees with EP in full-- and then add in the history as part of background. So when I post chapters, I will be glad to revise them to incorporate historical material.

For anyone who is substantially involved in the book, I will certainly want to list them as co-authors.