Posts by Godfrey

Intensity, location, duration

Might Elayne's article from several years ago be pertinent? She used the term "fancy pleasure" to elucidate the trouble with the common take on katastematic pleasure as I recall.

For me, a way that is is much more useful than kinetic-katastematic in thinking about various pleasures is in terms of intensity, duration and location. This can be found in the PDs, although not without some effort. Another practical way to examine particular pleasures and pains is to look at whether you can expect them to result in net pleasure or net pain, and act accordingly.

Quote from Cassius

And he didn't say "Ever since I was 50 and reached a complete understanding of my philosophy I have never felt any pain" or anything like that. He acknowledged his pain but held that his pleasures far outweighed them and that he was happy to be alive to experience that day.

It's been some time since I read Gosling and Taylor, but if I recall correctly, they consider the understanding of philosophy to be something of a one-and-done pleasure and they call it katastematic. But as you say, that by no means implies an end of pain. Pains and pleasures still come and go (for some reason an image of swirling around comes to mind) but the stable pleasure of correct philosophy can outweigh most, if not all, of the pains.

A motto refers to a guiding principle, whereas a slogan is more of a pithy phrase, although it, too, can reference a guiding principle.

Don't overthink it. Do less than you want to. Approach practice as indulgence instead of work. Choose what is self-reinforcing. Old age is not for the faint of heart... These are some of my current favorites; I find them useful based on circumstances, but to others they may certainly be trite or even meaningless. Basically I use them as pointers. And sometimes they just make me chuckle.

Personally, I'm using "slogans" these days. Many of the best ones are ones that I just make up to fit my current situation, some aren't Epicurean but are compatible with the philosophy, depending on what I keep in mind when thinking about them. I put one on the home screen of my phone and think about it throughout the day. Then after a couple of days I switch to another one.

A model for this is the Buddhist lojong slogans. Depending on the translations, some of those are applicable. Of course, those refer back to Buddhist concepts, but I just happily bastardize them to my own ends.

PD09: If every pleasure were condensed and were present at the same time and in the whole of one's nature or its primary parts, then the pleasures would never differ from one another.

Pleasure can be examined in terms of intensity, location and duration. If you really look at your present experience at any time, you may find that you're happy even though you just stubbed your toe. Or that your toe feels intense pain, but your belly is pleasantly full. As to mental pleasures of the bittersweet variety, I think of them as comparable to multitasking. Current neuroscience (to my understanding) has found that multitasking is in actuality just rapid task switching. In the same way, I would posit that bittersweet is actually bitterthensweetthenbitterthensweetetcetc. The pleasant memory prompts the pain of loss, which might then be replaced by a pleasant memory and so on. Or a pleasant memory may prompt the pain of loss, and the pain of loss lingers. Or vice versa.

An experiment that I occasionally do is when I feel like I'm in a neutral state, I try to really examine how I'm feeling. I always find that I'm experiencing pleasure and/or pain: it's just that the intensity may be very low, or a pleasure somewhere is offsetting a pain elsewhere. We are constantly experiencing pleasure/pain, both as a complete organism and in our various parts. Some of these concepts need to be felt as well as reasoned out, which is part of the point of the Epicurean canonic.

As to the physical pleasure of not stubbing your toe... Physically, not stubbing your toe is a non-event, since it didn't happen. Assuming that you have no other pain in your toe, your toe would have an absence of pain and thus pleasure.

Speaking as a man of a certain age, if my whole body had no physical pains, I would be in a state of great pleasure!

Quote from Cassius

While it's a certainty in Epicurean philosophy that there is life elsewhere in the infinite and eternal universe, and it seems likewise a certainty that we as humans are the best and the brightest,

Cassius did you mean to say "we as humans are not the best and the brightest"? That would be my understanding....

Well that's quite the juicy question, and a subject of debate since long before this forum! We have several threads on this very topic, but here's an overly brief synopsis:

The academics have basically divided into two camps on this subject, while I and I think some others have a hybrid view. One view is the realist view, which is that the gods exist (or at least Epicurus believed they exist) as he has described them. The other view is the idealist view, which is that the gods are an ideal culmination of Epicurean philosophy, and an ideal to strive for even though they don't exist.

Some things to examine:

- Epicurus has described the gods as material, in a way that follows the overall logic of his materialism. This can be compared to his description of sight, of memory and of other phenomena in terms of atoms and void and nothing supernatural.

- My knowledge of the culture of Athens of his day is sketchy, but I also think that he saw some value in festivals and worship, as long as one kept in mind that there is nothing supernatural. There are various pleasures to be had in celebration and in being part of a community, and I think that he wanted to make use of these.

- Then there's the fact that science has advanced in the last 2300 years. Epicurus was a philosopher, not a scientist. Much of his thinking was remarkably prescient, but we also have far more information than he had access to. So, on the one hand we need to consider his ideas in light of modern science. But on the other hand we need to do our best to follow his reasoning and motivations, which is extremely difficult given the limited quantity of his extant texts.

I'm giving it a spin, as well.

I haven't yet read the article, but the term "Epicurist" is interesting in that it seems to avoid being confused with the foodie implications. It co-opts the co-opting of "Epicurean."

Nice!

Rule #1:

Whenever there is a conflict between Cicero and other sources, don't trust Cicero.

Quote from Julia

Only when I ask "Name the satisfaction/relief this will bring" am I forced to actually think about the consequences, and because they're positively framed, it also motivates me to follow through:

Quote from

This is going beyond the scope of what we have available from tKalosynihe extant texts of Epicurus

VS71. Ask this question of every desire: what will happen to me if the object of desire is achieved, and what if not?

Quote from Julia

…whatever you Choose or Avoid will bring satisfaction and/or relief, won't it?

Not necessarily. For example, a bowl of ice cream at 9 in the morning might bring an excess of pain over pleasure. This could be in the form of anything from indigestion to self-self-loathing. For this reason, this choosing is a place where one can examine the category of desire being addressed. A prudent choice would then theoretically lead to a preponderance of pleasure, and an imprudent one to a preponderance of pain.

This brings to mind a previous thread discussing the best words in English for "choice" and "avoidance". I don't think any agreement was reached at the time, but in the current context it becomes apparent that a third word is needed which describes the act of reasoning/intuition that leads to a choice or avoidance. There may be such a word in the Greek, but that's beyond me. My offering at the moment is "weigh" for the act of reasoning/intuition, and "select" or "reject" for the intention resulting from said "weighing". After the intention comes the performing of the resultant action.

Looking at it in this way, it becomes a three step process: 1) weighing, 2) selecting or rejecting, and 3) doing. Further, as I'm thinking of it currently, 3) isn't "doing or not doing", it's actually doing one thing or doing another thing. Rejecting eating the 9am bowl of ice cream doesn't result in doing nothing but in moving on to another endeavor, be it active or passive. So in this way selecting isn't either/or, it's actually choice and avoidance. In selecting one thing, you reject another, and vice versa. This relates to the idea that there's no neutral state: just as we're always experiencing either pleasure or pain, we're never doing nothing unless we're dead. At any moment, we've chosen to do one thing and are avoiding myriad other things.

It would be interesting to know if the Greek supports this interpretation of and v or in any way.

For me, the immediate pleasure of choosing is that of agency. And this can build upon itself with tiny successes such as choosing to take a break, then taking it when the time comes.

I just finished reading a short book titled Time Surfing, by Paul Loomans, which talks about the power of taking breaks as one of the seven steps to intuitive productivity that he addresses in the book. As a retiree, I find his ideas in the book very appealing. One caveat, for Cassius , is that the author is a Zen monk But, to paraphrase Seneca, take good ideas from wherever you may find them. Within reason, of course.

Quote from EyalA

Plato gave me thd conviction that the truth is out there. So i kepg reading and writing to try and get to the bottom of it.

Absolutely no reflection on you, EyalA , but this takes me back to the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The book is a chronicle of the author's pursuit of an answer to the question "what is Quality?" and his concurrent descent into madness. One could ponder what the relation of the two may be, but it reads to me as a cautionary tale against going too deep into Plato

I've read it, but long enough ago to have forgotten it. I've decided to shelve Timaeus for the time being, so I'll read this instead and with more pleasure.

It does look like a very good article as I look over my highlights from before.

Another fine podcast!

During your discussion of the proem to Lucretius' Book 2, my mind was roaming as it tends to do in the fog of morning....

The trope of standing above or far from a battle or disaster, I think, relates directly to the Stoic exercise of "the view from above". I'm not exactly sure what the Stoic take on this exercise is: one's insignificance? how we're just like ants running around? But Lucretius' take is to use "the view from above" to examine pleasure.

Further afield, as it were: for some reason, this proem brought to mind the movie Gladiator II. From there, it occurred to me that Lucretius may have been inspired by attendance at the Coliseum spectacles. In each of these cases, pleasure is derived from watching the suffering of others, but the experience is quite different from watching misfortune unfold in real time and in person, however remote. Having recently observed the latest LA wildfires from atop a neighborhood bluff, I can attest that any pleasure (maybe a feeling of relative safety?) is more than offset by horror at what is transpiring, and the thought that it could spread. (A storm at sea often continues ashore; the victors of a bloody battle may be inspired by blood lust to rape and pillage the defenseless citizens nearby.) The same scene, viewed in a cineplex or a theatrical stage, occurs at a remove from which the musings of Lucretius are far more understandable. And more Epicurean, I posit. Of course, this is my take from 2025, which may bear no relation to Lucretius' day. Or perhaps it does.

The marine layer now dissipated: to work.