Posts by Godfrey

Quote from Cassius

What I am wanting to see here is a good explanation of how we can recognize that while an extreme of a good may be unobtainable, a lesser amount of that good is definitely desirable and working hard to get, and any formula we develop has to take that into account.

Cassius this doesn't give you the answer you're looking for, but there doesn't seem to be any formula other than frank speech. The line between N/N and unlimited desire, as far as I can tell, is so individual that it can only be dealt with on an individual basis, like medicine. People needing to depend on formulas might be better served by the Stoics (except that they would then lose the benefit of a coherent worldview).

It might be more relatable and/or useful to those of us who are not interested in power or unlimited wealth to think about the desires to live forever, to have perfect health, or some other visceral desire. By visceral, I mean something that we've reasoned out for ourselves. We've come to the intellectual conclusion that the particular desire is limitless, yet we still subtly (or not) experience it on a physical level.

Other examples might be media influenced: the desire to look a certain way, to weigh less or more. I think that a big part of the vain desires are to some extent unconscious, so only by really being aware of our feelings do we become aware of them.

What I'm thinking of are desires that we can wrestle with as individuals, as opposed to desires that are easier to discuss and resolve intellectually. Both are important, but the personal wrestling matches are how we can really dig in for a deeper understanding.

Quote from reneliza

But an Epicurean could live a minimal life out of necessity and nothing would be lost or fall short. It would still be a complete life without detraction as long as they still had their reasoned understanding of the good (pleasure) and no fear of death.

I think the author makes this point in the second paper. But I could be confusing it with one of these papers...Ratio_Aponia_Ataraxia_On_the_Proem_of_Bo.pdf

Practicing_Ataraxia_at_Lucretius_De_reru.pdf. I'd never make it as an academic

PD07 and PD10 address this point pretty directly.

Personally I would stick to the word "pleasure" where DO uses hedone, and consider using "satisfaction" where he uses eudaimonia. But I much prefer Don 's "well-being" to satisfaction: well-being seems much more complete to me, if that makes any sense. As for substituting satisfaction for pleasure, I can't imagine running around and shouting to everyone about satisfaction!

Also, I think over time we've been getting to a more specific definition of "pleasure" as one part of the faculty of feeling. I don't think that this specificity takes away anything from the meaning of pleasure, but actually is helpful to fully understand it. That's why I wouldn’t substitute another word for hedone. I think that Epicurus and DO were being very specific when using that word. The word eudaimonia, to me, has more wiggle room to try out other English words.

One way to think about "absence of pain" and "living in a cave" is that it’s actually rather unnatural to live that way. Unless you're thinking in terms of how early humans lived, which I don't think is what Epicurus had in mind as his philosophy is intricately tied to the society in which he lived.

The feelings of pleasure and pain are an entirely natural faculty. Our goal is to live the most pleasant life, which we do by listening to our feelings and using them as a guide to action. A person who is striving for maximum frugality is at some point going to experience mental and/or physical pain. If they ignore that pain then they're doing the same thing that in other situations clearly leads to unnatural desires, in this case the unnatural desire for frugality. If a person thrives on frugality, and either experiences no pain or examines their pain and determines that bearing that pain will lead to greater pleasure for themselves, then for them the desire for frugality could be considered natural and unnecessary.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Godfrey

They are desires which are divorced from the limit of the natural homeostatic relationship between pleasure and pain, and thus have become unlimited

Godfrey so you are saying that this is the definition of unnatural desires? And can you spell our further what you mean by "the natural homeostatic relationship between pleasure and pain?

That's my current interpretation.

The natural homeostatic relationship between pleasure and pain is my understanding of the contemporary idea that an excess of pleasure tends to produce pain, while pleasure can bring some relief from an excess of pain.

To my current understanding, the "non-natural" are best described as "unlimited" desires. They vary by the person and by the situation and can change over time. They are desires which are divorced from the limit of the natural homeostatic relationship between pleasure and pain, and thus have become unlimited. Some of them involve intense, conscious effort by the person in order to consciously limit them, while others have been eliminated by the person through reasoning as to how they would affect their pleasure and pain over time.

For instance, many people can enjoy a cocktail from time to time, maybe more. There are natural consequences to overindulgence such as a hangover or regrettable behavior. These provide a natural incentive to limit one's future consumption to what, for them, is an amount which balances a maximum of pleasure with a minimum of pain. So when the desire for that one extra drink arises they can choose to act based on their previous experience and consideration. This would be a case of natural desire.

On the other hand, this same situation for an alcoholic involves unlimited desires. They face extreme difficulty in acting rationally when faced with a strong desire for a drink, because their homeostatic functioning isn't working as it naturally should. This would be a case of unlimited desire.

To oversimplify, these two examples have the same basic pleasures and pains involved, but for one person the desire involved is natural, for the other person it's unlimited. These might be considered physical desires.

Things like the desire for fame, fortune and power would then be mental desires. Similarly to the previous examples, one person may have a naturally limited desire for one or more of them while someone else may have unlimited desire.

As to whether some unlimited desires are to be fully banished from our lives: that, too, is up to the individual and their particular circumstances. And in some circumstances, for some people, it seems like common sense to banish a particular desire and they don't need to think about it much. Whereas for other people and/or circumstances, a desire may need to be banished with great effort. Still another case is a desire that gets temporarily banished as being or becoming unlimited, then after a time it dissipates and becomes a natural desire to be healthfully enjoyed.

ADMIN NOTE: This thread was split off after Post 10 of the "Welcome Kungi" Thread here. The following series of posts were originally post 11 in that thread.

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Quote from Cassius

We need to continue to talk about how to avoid an overbroad formulation here and what issues arise with this. What exactly are "unnatural" pleasures? Should we seek none of them at all to any degree?

This is a prime example of confusing pleasures with desires. All pleasures are natural because pleasure/pain is the faculty of feeling. Desires are what need to be discussed in terms of what is natural, necessary, vain &c, not pleasures. I imagine this may sound like nitpicking but I'm increasingly convinced that it's an important point.

Limits seem to be a key factor in evaluating one's personal desires, at least in terms of desires which are naturally limiting v desires which need to be limited by the individual. But this is just one of several ways to evaluate desires, another being estimating resultant pleasures and pains.

Welcome Kungi!

The most important practical exercise for a person beginning to explore Epicurus is to set aside and follow through with a daily time to study. Epicurean philosophy is much more of a unified worldview than a specific set of practices. Paradoxically, it's a very straightforward philosophy, but, due to the dearth of original texts and the Academic backgrounds of many of the secondary writers, it takes quite a while to understand properly.

I agree with Cassius on the reading he recommends. There's also much here on the forums to review: an overwhelming amount!

Another practical exercise, which is equal in importance with the first that I mentioned, is to post questions and discuss issues of interest to you. Key to the philosophy is friendship and frank speech and this is one manifestation of those ideas.

Speaking only from my personal experience, I advise (with much respect) putting aside Hiram's book for a while. That was one of the first books that I read after discovering Epicurus, and I found that it wasn't a very direct path, for me personally, to understanding the philosophy. It may well be worthwhile for you to return to, but I don't advise it as a starting point.

One final recommendation would be to read Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods. That's what started me on my Epicurean journey: I was attempting to reconcile some of the inconsistencies in Stoicism and realized, perhaps like you, that Epicurus had already done that.

Quote from Cassius

In outline, natural wealth is one of the many objects that we naturally seek in order to satisfy natural desires and thus feel pleasure.

A very good snippet re: desires and pleasure I pasted this for that in particular, natural is a separate issue.

Quote from Don

200. Don't think it unnatural (ἀφυσιολόγητον aphysiologēton) that when the body cries out, the soul cries also. The body says don't be hungry, don't be thirsty, don't be cold. It is difficult for the soul to prevent these cries, and dangerous for it to ignore the commands of nature because of attachment to its usual independence.

Good quote Don !

"...dangerous for it (the soul) to ignore the commands of nature because of attachment to its usual independence" is intriguing. This provides maybe the simplest description of vain desires: ignoring the commands of nature. And it implies the antidote: pay attention!

"...attachment to its usual independence" is less clear.

This is I think where limits of desires come into play. The pleasure from the martini is good. At the point where it might lead to an excess of pain, it's not prudently choiceworthy. This is a natural limit. When you desire to drink several martinis, even though you're not enjoying them, your desire has tipped into unnatural/vain territory.

Quote from Cassius

Godfrey from this formulation I infer you are eliminating all "unnatural" desires completely. How did you define or give examples for that category?

Quote from reneliza

I wonder if the “unnatural” desires are meant to be things that don’t bring you pleasure even when they are satisfied, or those that can never be met, but instead expand further and further as you get closer (like desire for wealth or fame that only grows as you reach the previous goals you’d set)

Thanks reneliza ! You've said this better than I would have.

There are other things that I notice I'm beginning to find addictive in that they're becoming an obstacle to pursuing other pleasurable activities. It could be that I'm finding less pleasure in the addictive activity as well. A current example for me is reading: reading one book or article tends to lead to another, then three more, and before I know it way more hours have gone by than I originally planned on. Another example is dark chocolate. For years, I would eat a square after one or two meals a day. It wasn't until I returned from a vacation where I didn't eat any chocolate that I realized that I wasn't really enjoying it much any longer.

Neither of these things are things that I would eliminate entirely. But in both cases I had become oblivious of the natural limit, in that they were no longer producing an excess of pleasure or were to some degree producing pain. Since I had become oblivious to my natural limits in these cases, I had to self-limit in order to reestablish awareness of my natural limit. Now I'm enjoying the occasional piece of chocolate again, and I'm finding the time to do the things that I was neglecting due to reading.

I interpret the dividing line, in terms of limits, as those that require a person to self-limit. But there are those that I just self-limit out of hand and stop thinking about, such as hunger for glory, then the ones that I need to self-limit just enough to return to my normal pleasure/pain equilibrium. The second kind become natural and unnecessary desires once I've successfully returned to normal functioning. If nothing else, this should make clear why Epicurus never categorized specific desires.

The passage where Epicurus gives a young man advice about sex might be a good example to look at, but I can't remember the source at the moment.

Also about how to reason from the observable to the non-observable.

One clarification, which I may have mentioned previously. When I refer to the sweet spot of natural and unnecessary desires, I'm not saying that every desire in this category is meant to be chosen. What I'm thinking is that this is where the majority of our day to day choices and avoidances happen. The natural and necessary desires are, for the most part, choices. The unnatural desires are, for the most part, avoidances.

First off, I would throw out Torquatus in this instance because, at least for me, this is the heart of Cicero’s attempt to discredit Epicurus. He's over-complicating pleasure and over-simplifying desire.

All of the nuance is in Epicurus' writings. He's the one who brings up limits. The problem that arises with Cicero is that the feelings aren't adequate to create a personal value system: they're reactions. You can anticipate how you might feel, and that is integral to choosing and avoiding, but it's a piecemeal approach to ethics and Cicero and others have a field day with that.

Effective ethics aren't created piecemeal. But as Epicurus clearly shows, they're not handed down from above (any "above"). I'm thinking that the categories of desires are a framework that we each use to create our own ethical system. Epicurus, as I think was pointed out in the podcast recently, wasn't a dogmatist: he was teaching us how to think. And this is another example of him doing so. We each, in our given situation, are given this tool to categorize and prioritize what is important to us.

As for limits.... As I currently understand it, the natural and necessary desires are the basics. We need these to survive. It's pretty confusing from the remaining texts of Epicurus (and Cicero doesn't add anything useful here as far as I can tell) what the difference is between natural/unnecessary and unnatural (or unnatural/unnecessary). So to reason it out, how can we differentiate these two?

The natural relationship between pleasure and pain is that they limit each other. This is how we reach homeostasis: too much pleasure leads to pain, which we limit through pleasure, and so on in a continuous cycle. As for what is unnatural: we know the limit of pleasure from PD03, but PD11 points out that we need to know the limits of pains and desires. The physical limits of pains are spelled out in PD04, but what are the mental limits? The natural limit of pain is through pleasure. But we humans have a unique ability to give ourselves unlimited mental pain, and this breaks the natural cycle of homeostasis and can be considered unnatural. This is probably where addiction lies, and addiction is now understood (correct me if I'm wrong) as desire run amok. If we've gotten to this point, we've broken the natural limit of pain and desire and must self-limit or find other means to limit such as hospitalization, rehab, having oneself tied to a mast and so forth.

To be in the "sweet spot" of a pleasurable life we must have our basic needs (natural and necessary desires) met, and we must know our personal unnatural desires. The pain from unnatural desires is just a result, to avoid that pain we have to understand and limit our desires. Then, when our basic needs are met and we are free from unnatural desires, we can embrace the natural and unnecessary desires as we like, and experience all variety of pleasures. So maybe Cicero got this part right when he described the perfect life of pleasure; he just neglected to put it in the proper context. Or he couldn't reason it out.

Another way to approach the problem is through the categories of desires. The problem laid out in post #1 involves all the categories: natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and unnatural. The problem is to break down the problem and see which parts you would align with which categories. Pleasure as well as pain is involved in the situation; in looking at them and analyzing the various feelings as results of particular categories you might find some clarity.

Without assigning them to categories, because that would reflect my values and not yours, here are some of the pieces:

- desire for financial security

- desire for a massive amount of financial security

- desire to manage your own finances

- desire to keep up with financial news

- desire to keep up with geopolitical news

There are probably more moving parts than this, but you get the idea. For each desire I've listed, plus any others involved, think deeply as to whether it’s a need (natural and necessary), a want (natural and unnecessary), or an unhealthy obsession (unnatural and unnecessary). [Note: I borrowed this language from Nate's excellent introduction to his compilation of Key Doctrines.] This is a method to figure out how to align your actions with your values and with the end goal of pleasure.

Regarding investments:

Many years ago and after much research, I became a passive investor. I moved all of my equity investments into index ETFs. These funds were in several segments of the market, and I allocated them as best as I could based on the research I did at the time. Since then, every six months I do some math and rebalance my allocations as necessary.

Obviously this isn't for everyone. But I have found that I don't worry about investing, and I've stopped feeling the need to check news as regards investing.

I'd separate out the desire quite easily: I don't have any desire to build said rocket, so any consideration of doing so is strictly hypothetical. I don't need to think about it and I can spend my time pursuing my natural and necessary and my natural and unnecessary desires.

If for some reason I found that I had the desire to build said rocket, I wouldn't need to give it much thought. I'm retired, and at this point in my life there's very little possibility that I could complete such a project. I'd just intuitively consider it, for me, to be unnatural. In point of fact any decision would pretty much be subconscious. If I were to analyze why, I would find that the potential pain that I'd experience in doing such a project would be far beyond any pleasure that I might experience.

I think that the key here is that I've already considered, very generally, what I feel is unnatural for me. Because of this it's almost become a personal prolepsis: I have a preconception (which may or may not actually be a prolepsis ) as to what is unnatural for me. Running for president, becoming a billionaire, solving the great problems of physics are other things that I find in my unnatural category if I rummage around.

Now imagine, if you will, that I'm a 40 year old rocket scientist. First I can ask myself, "would I like to do this?" (do I have a desire to do this?) If I don't, end of story. If I do, then I can ask myself why I'd like to. What are my motivations? Am I motivated by the money I might make? By the fame it might bring? By the excitement of the challenge &c.... Then I can analyze each of those motivations (desires) in terms of the pleasure and pain involved.

At least for the moment, I think this comes down to two basic points:

1) The goal is always pleasure. If we get away from that, we'll lose our way. (PD22) In evaluating desires, the end goal is pleasure. But desire and pleasure are different. Examining and understanding our desires helps us to attain pleasure.

2) Understanding our categories of desires in a sense becomes our personal value system. This system runs in the background and simplifies our life by directing our thoughts and actions to what is most important to us.