Posts by Elayne

I love the feeling of awe. Although some describe it as containing an element of fear, that is not the case for me, and I suspect that may be partly related to my lack of belief in the supernatural.

Here's a short description of some research on animism in adults. I knew about animism as a predictable developmental phase in children because of my work, but I was also aware through observation that many adults retain at least some vestiges. The way it manifests can be as subtle as just a sensation that there is a presence "out there." John Wathey talks about this in his book about the illusion of god's presence.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-gi…-bicycles-alive

As far as knowledge requiring 3 legs not in conflict... the feelings give us a different type of information than senses, so I am not sure they could ever conflict with sense knowledge.

On the prolepses, when we are talking about something like "justice", that is purely pattern recognition to begin with and can't come into conflict with the senses, because there is no outside standard. There's no "justice particle" to observe, different from particles of a material god which _could_ be observed.

Other pattern recognitions can sometimes conflict with evidence, such as misattribution of causality, and in that case the senses (data) overrule the faulty pattern recognition. That's again different from justice. I would say that for me, if the data doesn't fit an innate pattern assignment, it's the pattern that's in error. Epicurus doesn't address this type of prolepsis/sense conflict exactly, does he? But I don't think he shows quite the strength of confidence in prolepses-- he doesn't say anything like "if you don't trust your prolepses, you can't trust anything." This makes me think that in a standoff, he would trust the senses more.

For me, on the prolepses-- I think they give us extremely valuable and accurate information about ourselves, about our species, about how our brains work, and that is reality. I do not think we could know these things about ourselves any other way, because the prolepses are experiential. So I don't have any quarrel with counting prolepses in the Canon, as long as we also do not stray from evidence of our senses.

I think our recognition of a spectrum type pattern of "most to least" tells us there are some creatures somewhere on the farthest end of pleasure. It's not reasoning so much as this innate pattern. I know of no evidence that would counter that expectation of pleasurable beings. So I can go a long way with Epicurus on that line of thinking.

There is room for different interpretations of the prolepses. I personally always look at anything Epicurus says to see if I agree with it-- if he says something I think is scientifically either too far of a conjecture or already falsified by evidence we have today, it doesn't bother me to say I disagree.

IF Epicurus had proposed that prolepses could be used in isolation, minus sense evidence or at least inferences consistent with sense evidence, then I would say oops, Epicurus, on that proposal we will have to part ways.

Because he put so much weight on trusting our senses, it's hard for me to imagine he would propose belief in a prolepsis which violated sense data.

Now, we have access to centuries of neurologic and physics research he didn't have. So I know that we are pattern recognizers and that our innate pattern recognitions are over-active in some cases. Why can I say that? Because sometimes we see patterns our sense data contradicts. When there is a conflict between an intuition and what my senses tell me, the senses win. This doesn't render pattern recognition useless at all. It does put a gold standard in the decision process about what is real.

I don't know if anyone here has read The Gift of Fear -- it's a very interesting book about how our "fast brain" does pattern recognition of psychopaths. Subtle things like blinking rates get combined to produce uneasiness in us, and many of us are prone to override that fear because we "can't put our finger" on what's scaring us. So maybe we go off with Ted Bundy.

I think these fast pattern recognitions are important. I don't ignore them. I wouldn't be alone in a room with someone who gave me that feeling. But to convict such a person in court-- I need sense evidence.

So as far as awe goes-- I do not think there's any sense data to support the idea that feeling awe upon looking at tall mountains is because there's a vast complex intelligence involved, which I'm connecting with, no matter how much it feels like that's the case-- and to propose that the mountains somehow point to the existence of such an intelligence is contrary to both Epicurus' understanding of physics and modern physics. The evidence of my senses wins.

When we see a tree, it is not because the tree consciously sends images of itself or because some intelligence of the tree is connecting with us. When I read Epicurus on images of the gods, it sounds more like he's describing that kind of thing rather than a contact of minds.

I do also happen to think even the image proposal is the least plausible explanation, now that we know more than he did about neuroscience... and for less plausible hypotheses, sense evidence is needed-- and we have none. So I admit I diverge from him, but I also think the idea of our minds connecting with Epicurean gods' minds is farther than what he said... and that it would conflict with his ideas about the material nature of the mind being unable to survive outside the body.

At any rate, I do not see a correlation between the "blessed beings" Epicurus described and the frequent religious intuition of connecting with a vast intelligence "behind" the inanimate parts of the universe. Epicurus goes to great trouble to assure his students that material phenomena do not require a coordinating intelligence or any type of divine intervention to happen. And we have just finished a section of Lucretius where he gives his reasoning as to why the "soul" cannot persist outside the body-- in the same way, I cannot imagine him thinking the mind or soul of a material pleasure-filled being would be somehow in contact with us. Perceiving an "image" through the prolepsis is an interesting idea, and it is a bit hard to know exactly what he means by it-- there's room for different opinions, and I don't want to hold him to mine. I do think I have reason to think he didn't propose these blessed beings were communicating with us mind to mind.

It becomes extremely problematic to say that experiences while taking psychedelics are somehow more accurate perceptions of reality than how our brains perceive minus psychedelics... we would have no way to distinguish between accounts people have of extraterrestrial encounters, hallucinations during schizophrenia, etc, and what we perceive ordinarily. It is the same argument people in various religions use, that they have directly experienced the Christian god specifically, and that this is evidence such a god is real.

Susan, the senses and the feelings are different, or Epicurus wouldn't have considered them separately. Although I have called it the "sense" of awe, awe is a feeling, not a true sense. A feeling does not tell us the pepper is red-- it is not that kind of data. It tells us our feeling about a situation-- it does not give us descriptive data of the kind you are describing, such as that you are contacting an "intelligence" which also perceives you.

If we start saying that feelings tell us about physical properties of things we can't see, hear, etc, then we have the door open to whatever any religious person says they "feel" is true about the universe, and we have totally left the realm of material philosophy.

I'm fine with moving it to public.

Susan, one thing I'd say is that the sensation of awe as connectedness with something "greater" (which is still, IMO, a type of vastness-- vastness not necessarily only meaning physical size) does not mean that there _is_ some attribute of the thing in question which belongs to a _being_. Humans have awe in response to inanimate objects too, and it is not evidence that during those moments, there is some other consciousness we are contacting or intuiting. The sensation does tell us real information, but the information is about our own brains, about how we feel when we encounter certain stimuli.

What I was trying to get at with the pepper is that when different organisms feel differently, even though the capsaicin is in the pepper, there's still nothing inherently painful about it. The same for awe-- not every human feels awe at the same triggers. I don't think they are "awe-blind", as in color-blindness, unable to experience some inherent quality of the trigger. It's just that the same combinations of sensory inputs don't produce that sensation in everyone. I think that's why feelings and anticipations are in different categories from the senses, because the primary information feelings and anticipations give us is about ourselves, rather than some common inherent quality of the trigger.

This is a big deal, because if we assume that a sensation of connecting with incomprehensible vastness, whether that is a vast size or intellect or complexity or whatever quality, is evidence that a connection _is_ happening with another consciousness-- we will get off in the weeds. It's evidence humans have the feeling of awe, not evidence that we are connecting to other beings. Obviously some combination of things triggers the feeling-- but there's no evidence another consciousness is required.

For evidence that the feeling is responding to an actual connection, we would need sense data. I have that sense data with the infants-- they are right in front of me. If this feeling was selected for to strengthen human relationships under certain environmental pressures, it would make sense, and it's plausible that our pattern recognition processes would assign that sense to inanimate objects as well. Human brains are amazing at pattern recognition, and it's a well known thing that we often over generalize and see patterns that feel meaningful. The Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, etc. Young kids think cars can see them-- the headlights look like eyes.

Humans are neurologically set up for animism if we don't remember we need sense evidence. This is a big part of experimental design-- collecting sense data in a way as to bypass our tendency to form conclusions about patterns that may not be causal or even replicable associations.

I get the feeling you are turned off by atheists... that you think we are missing something, so that you are surprised when you see an atheist express awe. I am an atheist in the modern sense, in that I simply don't hold any supernatural beliefs, and I think Epicurus was also. The difference between me and theists who experience awe is that theists make assumptions that their pattern recognitions are telling them something well beyond what sense data can support. The feeling itself seems qualitatively the same, as far as I can tell from descriptions. I don't know why it would be surprising that atheists have these feelings-- the conclusion aspect isn't required for the feeling.

In the Epicurean sense, I do think it is more likely than not that there exist beings who experience pleasure to a markedly higher degree than do humans... but unlike Epicurus, I think we don't really know yet what factors trigger pleasure for them, considering we know nothing about their planet or their physiology. I don't know if humans would have pleasure in interacting with these beings-- I don't know if our pleasures would coincide with the pleasures of their species. It could be a situation like it is for me and Jefferson, where just because a person practices Epicurean Philosophy doesn't mean we will agree on our pleasures, and we might even dislike the other species while simultaneously agreeing they have achieved greater pleasure. I don't know if communication with them is possible. Sense data is what would answer those questions.

Oh, cool, Wikipedia actually has an interesting entry... the last section says vastness could be the primary thing that triggers it. In which case it is still relative to our ability to comprehend, not inherent in whatever we are perceiving. There's a possibility it strengthens social hierarchies. That especially interests me, because I am fascinated by the whole guru phenomenon. If someone perceives that vastness in a charismatic leader, this does tend to lead to extreme hierarchies where people give up their own judgment in favor of someone else's. Perhaps it is wise to be cautious with awe, lol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awe

Ah, interesting, Susan-- I actually don't think it is something in the baby, the music, or the aurora, any more than I think the pain of a hot pepper is in the pepper. Sure, capsaicin is in the pepper, but for birds it isn't painful. I think all feeling responses are properties of the subject doing the feeling, and that similar stimuli will often bring about similar feelings because we are in the same species. I don't think the Aurora Borealis, absent an observer, contains anything that would universally provoke awe.

We know some of the typical human triggers of awe. Things that are vast in size tend to do it, like mountains. I haven't read about a single common feature, but I would be interested to hear your hypothesis. Paul Pearsall wrote a whole book about Awe, which he proposed was actually a specific basic emotion.

Why we evolved awe would be an interesting evolutionary biology question-- does it serve some sort of fitness function? I bet this was an interesting talk-- the blurb describes awe as having a pro-social function, so maybe it has helped humans survive and reproduce. https://positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu/events/the-evo…of-the-sublime/

That's definitely relevant! A couple of thoughts... first, he sticks to what a noble human is. Not a universal quality for all beings, but a species he knows about and is one of. Then he ties the definition to a feeling, specifically the feeling of reverence, which keeps it from being abstract. If accepted as a definition, it makes the word "noble" useful for communication, whereas an idealistic use results in confused communication.

To be fully pleasure filled, I think a human would need to experience pleasure about their own self. Thinking about ourselves, our actions, our personalities-- if that is painful, how can we be pleasure filled?

I am not sure every human finds reverence to be an indispensable pleasure, rather than one variation of mental pleasure-- I mean that a lack of that feeling probably doesn't universally cause pain. But I do agree it is one of my own pleasures. I'm not sure if I feel it towards myself-- but I do feel pleasure about myself. And when I notice a feature of myself that I don't like, I set about to change it.

For myself, I might propose a modification to his definition, that a noble person is one who has chosen to form themselves into a self they take pleasure in. There's an aspect of us that reflects upon our own nature, as if we are judging ourselves to be a friend or a foe, a hero or anti-hero. If a person takes pleasure in knowing that she is patient, she might practice patience so she can enjoy both being patient and experiencing herself as patient.

I'll throw in here that one of the activities stimulating the strongest pleasurable feeling of reverence in my own body is holding a newborn... the opposite of big and profound, lol. Newborns have gained little skill at deliberately achieving their own pleasure-- they are not godlike in that way. They have an innate preference for pleasure, along with some innate behaviors to get their needs met, like crying to be fed or held. But I still experience a deeply pleasurable wonderment and awe when holding them.

Susan, yes! You are getting exactly to the heart of what people confront in themselves, in order to understand this philosophy. We have been so indoctrinated to think "worthy of reverence" must refer to some quality other than pleasure. People resist letting go of it. Indeed, it makes them squirm.

Setting anything other than the feeling of pleasure as the measure of greatness means you have got virtue ethics mixed up in there.

The feeling of reverence is a pleasure. But our having that feeling does not necessarily coincide with the being's skill at their own pleasure. It does seem to me that we might be more likely to feel reverence for such a being if we ourselves fully endorse pleasure! There's a reason I use a pig statue for my skype photo 😉.

"Bigger or more profound" than the human mind-- if that means more effective at gaining and maintaining pleasurable lives, it would be Epicurean. Although I find awe to be one of the pleasures and can imagine feeling awed in the presence of a supremely pleasure filled being, the profundity isn't in the being-- it's how I feel in the presence of something incomprehensible. That incomprehensible sensation can be pleasurable, but it's not the way I would rank the beings as gods. That would rest on their own internal feelings of pleasurableness. It's quite possible humans would meet such beings and feel no recognition or awe, if we didn't realize who we were encountering.

Susan, I think the key thing is that any such consciousness would be materially based. The mind is what the brain does-- so the beings most advanced in pleasure, wherever they are, are necessarily made of matter also, not disembodied.

I agree they don't necessarily have to resemble humans. What they get pleasure from could be completely different from our own pleasure. Pleasure is how we are ranking them, not any other feature-- so when we say they are "greater", that doesn't mean that they are necessarily more intellectually or technologically advanced, or that their virtues are remotely like ours.

I have considered it's entirely possible that the most currently pleasure-filled beings in the universe might even be some species right here on our planet. Perhaps it is a species that does not consider death as problematic at all, rather than being immortal. Since pleasure is a feeling, I don't think we can put any qualifiers on it, that it has to be pleasure over certain things, to count. There's no reason, for instance, that such beings would have to know or care about humans. Which species in the universe is the most pleasure filled at any one time might even change, and that actually sounds plausible to me.

Yes, the last chapter. There are useful points in it, but also a lot of confusion!

I have dragged my feet on reading Frances Wright’s fictionalized account of a student in Epicurus’ Garden, partly because the language is so flowery that the passages I’ve seen quoted put me off. I’ve finally tackled it, and I have some thoughts to share. My main conclusion is that there are too many serious flaws to recommend it as a representation of Epicurean Philosophy without any accompanying commentary.

Misleading Implications about Pleasure as Restraint

Frances Wright has Epicurus say "Only: virtue is pleasure; were it not so, I should not follow it." Yes, I agree. She then has him say, "I think virtue only the highest pleasure, and vice, or ungoverned passions and appetites, the worst misery." I have a big problem with that phrasing. To me, virtue is any deliberate behavior that leads to more pleasure than pain, for the individual. The actual behavior may not always be pleasurable at the time, but the overall results are, or we would not label it virtue. It's because of the pleasure that we have come up with this whole conceptual category "virtue"-- but there isn't any freestanding thing such as virtue. (Wright does have Epicurus get into that later, but this particular thing she has him say is not coherent with that, so I am not convinced she fully understands it). It's not the deliberate quality of the action that makes it "highest", unless deliberation itself is the most pleasurable thing for a person. Instead, it is simply the fact that it is the most reliable way to get pleasure. Using deliberation to choose a pleasurable dinner menu based on past experience would be virtuous action in my framing. I'm not sure it would be so for Frances Wright.

I would say that deliberate choosing of behaviors that observation teaches us lead to pleasure is the most reliable way to go about things, and careless actions which fail to take our observations into account are the most likely to lead to pain. I could even go so far as to say certain behaviors are reliable enough to be useful as habitual virtues, such as the habit of honesty. It’s generally not necessary to turn every minute of life into a major decision process, so having certain habits of behavior has benefit in most cases. If deliberation is involved in choosing the habit, I would still count it as a virtue. But she is contrasting "ungoverned" pleasure-seeking with the "highest pleasure" of virtue in a way which makes it sound like virtue = restraint=pleasure. Even if she didn't mean to imply that, she doesn't explain well enough to prevent someone from drawing that impression.

Wright has Metrodorus say "all is unanimity in the garden" and talks about passions being restrained and calm-- well, there may have been unanimity. Although I doubt it, I really have no idea-- but this is the kind of thing that leads people to think Epicureans will always agree with each other and also elevates restraint in a way that makes it sound like the whole placid "middle path" type of thing.

In chapter X, she gets downright Buddhist. She has Epicurus say, "ask and she [Prudence] will tell you, that sensual pleasure is pain covered with the mask of happiness." Egad. Then "a happy life is like... a placid and crystal stream, that flows gently and silently along"-- more of this idea that it is the calmness, not the pleasure, which we are supposed to be going for. When you contrast calm pleasure with exciting pleasure and say calm pleasure is better, then it is calm you are going for, not pleasure. She uses the word "moderation" in that same way. This is the kind of talk that leads people to imagine Epicureans as vacuously grinning Moonies, handing out flowers to each other in the airport.

Unclear Discussion on Ambitions and Greatness

Wright says "the end of true philosophy is to proportion... our ambitions to our capacities" but winds up tying capacity to skill level rather than capacity for pleasure. She says, "Ambition is the spur, and the necessary spur of a great mind to great action"... following on the heels of discussion of talents, which implies great action is talented action-- but if the talent is not specifically a talent at gaining pleasure, of what use is it? How can we define a "great mind" other than a mind which understands pleasure and can obtain it, or "great action" as action other than action producing great pleasure? She leaves the reader thinking people should choose their efforts according to whether they can succeed at some abstract definition of greatness, like technical skill in painting, rather than maintaining a focus on pleasure.

Implies the Existence of Universal Virtues

Wright has Epicurus say "whether I stand my virtue upon prudence, or propriety, or justice, or benevolence, or self-love, that my virtue is still one and the same; that the dispute is not about the end, but the origin"-- meaning, that there isn't disagreement about what is called virtue but how it came to be called that. But this isn't whatsoever true-- the origin of virtue in material reality means exactly that the end behavior called virtue can vary! I have recently discussed that in a post on Jefferson.

Wright’s Epicurus says that "the united experience of mankind has pronounced virtue to be the great good" and calls this "universal" even in those who behave unvirtuously. He then says that the unvirtuous person is just in error-- that "hypocrisy has masked her [vice's] deformity" and that the person could be brought around to the truth by a sage. Even if Wright doesn't mean to imply it, she has completely neglected to explain things here so that they are grounded in pleasure. It would have been accurate to explain that the human species has typically found certain behaviors to result in more pleasure than pain and has labeled these behaviors 'virtues'-- sometimes people have been fooled into thinking they will get pleasure by doing the things typical humans have found lead to pain, called 'vices', but a person with more experience can point out factual observations about the usual consequences. However, there is no ground to say that just because a certain type of behavior has typically led to pleasure for most humans that it is always the most likely to do so (wisest) in a particular circumstance.

Ideas on Pain Inconsistent with Epicurean Philosophy

After discussing grief at the death of a friend, Wright has Epicurus say "were our body never subject to sickness, we might be insensible to the joy of health"-- a whole section that implies pleasure can only be known through contrast with pain. Yet this is not compatible with imagining Epicurean Gods as the most blissful beings along the pleasure spectrum-- where would be the pain that allows the pleasure to be felt, if pleasure is only a contrast situation? If contrast is necessary, the gods would have to have the most contrast and thus the most pain to have the most pleasure. My own observations about life have assured me long ago that although there is definitely pleasure in relief from pain, there is also ongoing pleasure that does not require interruption and contrast in the form of pain to be felt, because pleasure is an actual feeling, not just an absence of pain. If contrast/ change is necessary, which it probably is in order for our neurons to be triggered to fire, it can come in the form of variation of pleasurable inputs.

This is an entirely different notion from the accurate observation that sometimes in order to obtain greater pleasure, we will choose to undergo a lesser pain.

In the last section, about the morality of the "involved" model of gods, her failure to clearly incorporate the nature of the "good" as subjective (not universal) pleasure has again led to a big muddle. That is probably worth a separate post.

My overall impression of this book is not favorable. Even though here and there she gets around to explaining pleasure as a feeling, she does not seem to keep that solidly in her grasp. When writers make slips of this sort, it makes me suspect they have never fully understood the philosophy.

Cassius I think you are remembering when I teasingly said Nietzsche was being "emo"-- which is not just emotive but over the top weepy and introspective pop music. And somebody got mad at me for being disrespectful to Nietzsche. Lol!

Ok, just getting to this... let me give a more complete description of my perspective.

I disagree with Don that it is inferior if a scientist makes pleasure primarily out of doing research, vs some broader collection of pleasures. If that is the most reliable pleasure for the scientist, why wouldn't she choose it? "Moment-by-moment" pleasures _can_ create an overall pleasurable life. I do not think comparing science and profligacy makes sense-- they are nowhere near the same. But I have an implicit assumption here which I need to make clear-- I am talking about a real scientist, one who understands the use of evidence the same way Epicurus did-- because that _is_ science. Such a person would not have supernatural fears or be prone to non-evidence based contagious social ideas in the first place, because of having a scientific approach. That is the person's immunity to being dragged off track away from pleasure.

My scientist was not really hypothetical. My dad is a retired physicist and my mother was a mathematician. I never knew anyone who _only_ did science, lol, but I grew up surrounded by scientists and their families, and they were among the happiest (meaning, for me, experiencing sustained pleasure) people I knew. They were not beset by superstition... but they were not explicitly philosophers either. Many of them spent long waking hours pursuing their research projects. They all had families whom they enjoyed spending time with as well, and like my dad, they often spent family time teaching their children about science. Some of my most pleasurable memories involve my dad teaching me physics, from early childhood. It was a central pleasure, which seems to me very similar to Epicurus' instructions about studying nature with friends.

I observe that if a person is securely absent supernatural beliefs, they often tend to intuitively do the hedonic calculus, and they are often quite skilled without a sense that they have a philosophy. And if they have lived a long life making wise choices but have not formally written down or thought out a philosophy, I am very resistant to saying their happy lives were just due to blind luck. No-- they were happy due to their understanding of the scientific process and their natural ability to choose pleasure (including sometimes experiencing pain for greater pleasure).

As an adult, I have met non-scientist atheists who understood just enough about science to feel secure in rejecting un-evidenced notions and social fads, and I have observed that these people, over time, develop great skill in choosing pleasure-- but they are not philosophers. This evidence, right in front of me, prevents me from making assertions that someone must have a philosophy to wisely choose a pleasurable life.

Epicurus was able to develop his philosophy because it (IMO) is the _only_ one you can have if you are a scientist and pay attention to reality. No other philosophy holds up at all, under scrutiny.

My personal experience was to have been raised with a strong science foundation, and that was what helped me avoid ideas that make no sense, like Skepticism and various idealisms. I did not have doubt about these things being wrong. My natural enjoyment of pleasure became my guide. So when I read Epicurus, I had joy to find someone who had the same perspectives, like a friend from long ago... but even before I found him and before I saw how he had beautifully put together the structure of his philosophy, I had learned to make wise choices for my life. I also had joy in realizing I could find other people who thought about life as I did, by looking for Epicureans. I am extremely glad I found Epicurus-- but I was also already practicing the philosophy without calling it one, and it was functioning well.

As far as obstacles go, for me they have not been alternative philosophies and superstitions but normal griefs of life-- which I feel fully when they come up. I am not afraid of my feelings, and similar to Epicurus I would say that the most severe griefs do not last in their most intense form very long, and the milder griefs are not difficult to cope with, when one focuses on activities that bring pleasure-- for me, the main antidote to grief is social pleasures. Hugging my friends and family, singing together, eating and talking together, etc. I have had many griefs in life, and that is what has worked for me-- I don't tend to philosophize about grief. Often pleasure is strong even after losses, when I think about how fortunate I was to have known and loved the person who is now gone, and take time to remember them. I find pleasure in the sensation of poignancy and nostalgia.

What I'm wondering if I hear in Don's words-- and maybe not, Don -- please correct me if I'm wrong-- is an implication that pleasures must not just be sustained but somehow of a superior type, perhaps what I call a "meaning project", and I disagree with that. Some people do require a meaning project for pleasure, but not everyone does. It is a matter of temperament and likely neurology. But I strongly disagree that there are inferior and superior pleasures, if the pleasures are truly equivalent in their fullness. There are no trivial vs important pleasures. That is idealism and abstract thinking creeping in. Then you wind up with people saying things like "we should not try to have pleasure but meaningfulness"-- but what is meaningfulness without pleasure? What is beauty? Why would anyone want any of these things without the pleasure in them?

It is quite possible to intuitively understand and practice this without ever being a philosopher, and I've seen it done and don't even think it is extraordinarily rare. We don't see those folks on our philosophy forums, because they probably don't even know it is a thing, but they are out there enjoying life.

I should have been more specific, Cassius, about where I disagree with Lucretius' procedures. I was thinking about the section we covered last week, with the smooth, rough, or hooked atoms.

I am not so much concerned that his conclusions turned out to be incorrect as I am about how he arrived at them, through reason and analogy. Rather than this being a case of experimental error or a mistake in understanding an observation, it was a method problem. It's a great example of how reason is fraught with error.

I wouldn't have minded if he said it might be that way. But that's not how it was presented. And even in that time, I would have distrusted someone who used imagination to arrive at part of their case about the nature of things. It wouldn't have allayed my fears, because it wasn't arrived at with sound methodology, and you don't have to be a physicist to know the difference between observations and imagination/ reasoning by analogy.

I think it's important to confront problems like this, because it could make the philosophy less credible to someone who notices how Lucretius arrived at his assertions. And then to say this does no damage at all to the solid structure of the philosophy, because we can remove all the pieces arrived at by imagination/analogy and still reach the same conclusions.

Don -- I am going to summarize my opinion about this issue, so I have it in one place. I might change my mind with a strong argument against this, but right now I feel pretty definite about my position.

I find the strong assertion of "this is how it is", based on reason and analogy, in the section of Lucretius we just read as incompatible with Epicurean philosophy as I understand and practice it. The philosophy is just fine, in my opinion, but this particular approach of stating hypotheses about unobserved processes in a manner as if the hypotheses are factual is a mistake.

It is inconsistent with the Canon of knowledge, that we know what is true by observation, prolepsis, and feeling. The insistence on not using reason to determine truth (vs practical use of reason to decide on wise action, based on _observed_ truth) was one of the primary things that drew me to Epicurus.

I have for years said the atheists should not celebrate a Day of Reason. They should have a Day of Evidence.

I don't have any trouble with Epicurus saying that the possibility of multiple explanations for a single phenomenon is not a problem-- I agree. What I have trouble with is the way Lucretius is saying, to paraphrase, "it's like this, and we know it by analogy and reason." No. We do not know, because that is not how we "know" things.

I feel like Epicurus' language about these things, in the full context of his work, is more adherent to the Canon than the way Lucretius is presenting it. But anywhere that he presents a hypothesis as if it were decided fact, I disagree strenuously.

And it wouldn't have mattered if I had lived back then and not known the physics we know now-- my fears would _not_ be relieved if someone tried to reassure me using a method of determining truth that I already knew to be faulty. If the goal is to relieve my anxiety, it would not work to use that kind of extrapolation. I wouldn't trust it, and I would remain anxious about what was really going on. I would not trust someone who made assertions without evidence about the _rest_ of what they were telling me.

And leaving things that are unknown as so far blank spots on our map is fine with me, as it also appeared to be for Epicurus. That is completely different from the Skeptic position of saying we can't know anything at all.

Hypotheses are fine-- sometimes they lead to experiments which can test them, and sometimes they are just interesting.

Most importantly, because everything comes down to pleasure, why do I want to avoid confusing hypotheses with facts?

1) Because I would know my ideas about reality were derived from reason, not observation, and I would remain anxious and doubtful about my conclusions

2) Because misinformation can lead to unwise choices, more pain than pleasure, whereas being aware of unknown areas is fine. One can still make pragmatic decisions while remaining aware of uncertainties.

The issue of how much inquiry and science learning relates to pleasure is an individual preference. Like people who enjoy opera or the Three Stooges or both. I definitely get a lot of pleasure from science.

My argument against the supernatural gods going around interfering with humans has more to do with a complete _lack_ of evidence, and this was also true in Epicurus' time. Observing nature helps a person notice that supernatural action does not show up, and a lot of this is from the predictability of natural processes that Lucretius has already made note of, that we never see the bizarre things happen that would be frequent if reality were not material. That is a reasoning process, to be sure, but it is tightly tied to observations and is not the same as the leaps of analogy in the section we just read. One does not need to be a physicist or neuroscience to understand that line of argument.