Posts by Godfrey

Here's a post after a webinar with Voula Tsouna that tries to point out some of the issues:

Post

RE: Voula Tsouna Zoom Presentation This Thursday, May 27, at 12 Noon EDT

Pardon my tardiness in posting: I attended the presentation but am only now able to weigh in.

I got the impression that this was not a finished paper but a work in progress. She seemed to be working with athroa epibole versus kata meros epibole in order to draw some conclusions. Basically, is there a difference between a "big picture" epibole and an epibole of a detail or details? Is memory involved in one but not the other? Is memory involved at all in an epibole? Is attention?

Also she was…

Godfrey

May 27, 2021 at 8:04 PM

Bryan I'm interested in hearing more of your thinking on visual focus of the mind. This seems to be a topic of some controversy, and one of which my understanding is pretty limited. What do you mean by coalescing them with the anticipations? Would they then be a type of anticipation? And what exactly is the visual focus of the mind? Conscious, unconscious, dreams...? Is the Greek epibolai equivalent to these? How does the Greek word relate to the Greek phrase that you posted above?

And I love that Cassius finally got irritated with Cicero.

One thing that is commonly missed is that EP is a philosophy of personal responsibility. In a world in which there is no supernatural god, no afterlife, no absolute forms or essences, how do we avoid nihilism and live our lives? This is the context in which pleasure and pain are the guides. Some people choose abstract ideas such as virtue for a guide, but what is that other than a mental construct? Some people choose sex, drugs and R&R, but I question whether this is being aware of their pain or simply papering over it.

Pleasure and pain are innate, biological tools for guidance. To properly use them one must delve into the nuances of their own awareness and come to terms with what they find, keeping in mind that there is no neutral state. Often what appears to be neutral, when examined, contains pains and pleasures that we've just never noticed. That's where the real work takes place.

Fascinating! It's interesting (and reassuring) how closely our experience follows the biology. We've occasionally discussed, mostly anecdotally, the difference between "pain" and "suffering". For example if I have an injury I may eventually notice that I'm avoiding doing certain things, even though doing them doesn't actually hurt. Or I'll anticipate an action being painful and tense up, thereby making it more painful than it would be otherwise. I'm thinking here of the injury as being "pain" and the avoiding or anticipating as being or causing "suffering".

How do desires fit into this evolutionary picture of pains, or do they? Are desires, biologically, considered pains or are they completely different? Philosophically, they seem to be a type of pain and yet, at the same time, they seem to be something quite different.

Also, is a complete absence of pain something that is considered neurologically possible while maintaining full consciousness?

My thinking is that, eventually, it would be most interesting to get an outline of how pleasure, pain and desire operate, together and separately, then perhaps dig into details from that point. But in my ignorance I might be overly ambitious about such a complex subject....

I second that!

Quote from BrainToBeing

And, I was wondering if, particularly in this era of the planet, we can really say that searching for "a happy life" is going to save us all from the ecological and technological dilemmas we are creating.

In Epicurean terms, pleasure and pain are our guides. When the present or future conditions of, say, the planet or society are dismal, that's a source of pain to many of us as individuals. It's critical to remember that searching for a happy life involves paying attention to both our pleasure and pain, since they both are our guides. Over time, it often becomes evident that ignoring or suppressing our pain (such as distress over the state of the world) doesn't lead to more pleasure, and that we need to do the work to deal with the pain. In this case pain becomes a guide to living a happy life.

Also central to Epicurus' ethics are three categories of desire. One place to find these is in the Principle Doctrines, particularly PD29-30, PD15, and PD26. These categories are natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and unnatural. These perhaps could be considered more specific guides to what is prudent to pursue, and can help us to sort out actions that we might take to remove particular pains. I think most Epicureans would say (well, at least I would) that if more people were aware of and followed this ethical system, society and the planet might not be in the situation that they're in.

Epicurean ethics is really quite interesting, but it takes a lot of work to really dig into it and get full benefit from it. However there's much pleasure to be had from doing this work!

This gets to the heart of the ethical hedonism.

First, per PD03, freedom from pain in the body and trouble in the mind is the same thing as maximum pleasure.

Next, pleasure is the goal to which all things point. So by this reasoning, a relevant, contributing life is worth pursuing because it is pleasurable. Many studies point out that a relevant, contributing life increases well-being: what is well-being, if not pleasure?

To me, if you begin with the goal of being relevant and contributing (to whatever you might find relevant), then you're pursuing duty ethics. From my experience this eventually leads to burnout and poor health. Keeping pleasure as a guide, I can actually contribute more and be more relevant. To me, this is a valuable insight of Epicurus', although it's extremely controversial to this day.

In my own life, experimenting with becoming more aware of my feelings of pleasure and pain, and using them as a guide, has been a game changer. Combining this with an understanding of Epicurus' categories of desires provides a powerful set of tools for living a fulfilling life.

Quote from BrainToBeing

There are learning behaviors such as many elements of remembering behaviors, "modeling" (copying a trusted source), data integration behaviors, formations of beliefs, values, expectations

BrainToBeing do you have any similar sources regarding learning behaviors? Specifically data integration, forming beliefs, values, expectations... the sorts of things involved in concept formation.

In Diogenes Laertius and in Cicero (I don't have the specific cites at hand), two examples are given to illustrate prolépseis, and there is some scholarly disagreement as to their correctness. The interview with Dr. Glidden, previously posted in this thread, is a good discussion of that as I recall. One of the examples is that we learn to recognize a cow, or a horse, through repeated exposure to cows or horses. The other example, which is really just a mention, is that justice is a prolépseis. In your experience, is there a common thread between these examples? If not, how might the differences be described neurologically?

Quote from BrainToBeing

Unquestionably, as an evolved species, we are born with "bootstrap" behavioral programs

This is one of the key areas to pursue, in my opinion. What are examples of "bootstrap" behavioral programs?

In previous threads we've discussed instinct in animals and how that could perhaps provide some clarity. Maybe that's a useful place to begin?

Well said! The only thing I would add is regarding the final sentence. Your sentence as written follows logically from your observations, but for further clarity I would say that both pleasure and pain are guides. So to live our best lives we need to continually practice being aware of our pleasures and pains in order to obtain maximum information. From this information we can more skillfully make our choices and rejections which will maximize pleasure.

So yes, we naturally pursue pleasure, but not always skillfully. The task of increasing our skill of understanding and following the feelings as guides could reasonably be considered pursuing pleasure.

This path is following "the nature of things". The Stoic path seems to be following a mental construct. They say, I think, that almost nobody is virtuous.

There aren't many extant texts regarding the prolépseis. I'm really curious if and how these may relate to current neurology. As Don mentioned, some of us have been reading "popular" neuroscience books and, to us, there seems to be a connection. There are various threads in the forums discussing this.

Quote from BrainToBeing

"all good and all evil come to us through sensation".

Let's begin with context. If I'm not mistaken, this quote comes from Locke. This passage from the letter to Menoikeus is, I think, the closest equivalent in Epicurean philosophy.

"Second, train yourself to hold that death is nothing to us, because good and evil consist in sensation, and death is the removal of sensation. A correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable — not because it gives you an unbounded span of time, but because it removes the desire for immortality. There is nothing terrifying in life to someone who truly understands that there is nothing terrifying in the absence of life."

There is a difference in nuance between these two quotations which shows some further points of discussion. Epicurus' quote is in the context of discussing why we shouldn't fear death; I'm not aware of the context of Locke's quote.

Quote from Don

I agree with Godfrey ! At the risk of speaking for him

No risk there! I almost spoke for you when I posted

Quote from BrainToBeing

As a neurologist I've spent my career looking at behavior from an "organic" (biological) perspective. I can actually have a lot to say on the subject, if we (collectively) are interested.

I for one am interested, as this seems very pertinent to the Epicurean Canonic.

That's a great resource Cassius !

Thanks for that clarification @waterholic ! This makes perfect sense; I interpreted rules based standard quite differently so now I understand what you're getting at.

Quote from waterholic

Applying some sort of rule-based standard will create a structure and force the person to face the truth.

This sounds to me to be at odds with a philosophy based on individual responsibility. Isn't the point that, in a purely material universe, there is no rule-based standard?

However the fact that there is no rule-based standard leaves open the possibility that one can create a rule-based standard for oneself, as long as they don't assume that it will necessarily apply to anyone else. That's part of the beauty of the world we live in!

Another possible model for pleasure and pain is the act of making a painting. There are continuous judgements being made as to the various colors to use, and how to use them. What are the varying intensities of each of the colors? What are their locations? As your eyes travel over a painting, what is the duration of each particular color? (That might be a little abstract; how pervasive is the color?)

These also apply to the forms or shapes in the painting, to spatial relationships, to subject matter and to multivalence of interpretations of the painting.

A model such as this is valuable partly because it demonstrates the complexity of choices and rejections, as well as their intuitive nature. For me, attempting to accomplish a model like this through mathematics introduces a degree of removal from and abstraction of the process of living which conflicts with the nature of the Epicurean Canon: something that would delight a pompous aristocrat like Cicero.

From https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/algeb…dney%20stones.:

Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz are both credited with the invention of modern calculus in the 17th century.

In Latin, calculus means “pebble.” Because the Romans used pebbles to do addition and subtraction on a counting board, the word became associated with computation. Calculus has also been borrowed into English as a medical term that refers to masses of hard matter in the body, such as kidney stones.

Judging by this, "calculus" wasn't even a word in Greek. So "hedonic calculus" would be a later overlay onto choices and rejections, which probably doesn't add any clarity to this thread. 🤔