Posts by Godfrey

I interpret LFB the same way as Don in post #22 and as Cassius in post #23.

This was a book that I took notes on, which I rarely do. Here are some notes and quotes (italicized) regarding "concepts":

“Everything you perceive around you is represented by concepts in your brain.” This is how it reduces the tremendous volume of input to manageable information. The brain predicts sensory signals before they arrive and edits them to make them into useful representations of the world.

“Thus, concepts aren’t fixed definitions in your brain, and they’re not prototypes of the most typical or frequent instances. Instead, your brain has many instances—of cars, of dot patterns, of sadness, or anything else—and it imposes similarities between them, in the moment, according to your goal in a given situation. For example, your usual goal for a vehicle is to use it for transportation, so if an object meets that goal for you, then it’s a vehicle, whether it’s a car, a helicopter, or a sheet of plywood with four wheels nailed on.”

“Concepts are not static but remarkably malleable and context-dependent, because your goals can change to fit the situation.”

When you categorize, you are creating similarities in the world, not finding them.

“When your brain needs a concept, it constructs one on the fly, mixing and matching from a population of instances from your past experience, to best fit your goals in a particular situation.”

“Without a concept for “Fear,” you cannot experience fear.”

“Any healthy human can experience low-arousal, unpleasant affect. But you cannot experience sadness with all of its cultural meaning, appropriate actions, and other functions of emotion unless you have the concept ‘Sadness.’”

Quote from Yonge

...so as to know on the one hand, the opinion which goes beyond the actual sensation, or, on the other...

Quote from Geer

if you fail to distinguish between conjecture based upon that which awaits confirmation...

Quote from Geer

...and by the mental examinations of confirmed concepts...

Quote from Strodach

...or some percept of the mind itself...

My first thought while reading the various translations is that the Yonge quote (as well as most of the others)and the second Geer quote are referring to the same thing (opinions) and therefore the Geer quote is nonsensical.

But to look at the Geer quote, he's comparing "that which awaits confirmation" with "confirmed concepts." I can't comment on the Greek, but comparing Geer quote two with Strodach it looks like Geer is confusing "precept" with "percept."

There's a bit of a skeptical bent to Epicurus' thinking, as I understand it, in that all ideas and perceptions are open to verification: hence the multiple explanations of certain phenomena. But he's obviously not a Skeptic: the verification comes from direct experience. So, to me, Geer's translation is counter to the intent of this PD. Epicurus is saying that "confirmed concepts" are "opinions which go beyond the actual sensations."

My only exposure to the circumplex has been in LFB's book, so I can't say that I fully understand how it's meant to be read. Every time I look it up, I get a different understanding.

With that in mind, the History section of this Wikipedia entry credits it to Timothy Leary and describes it as I originally understood it: the circle being the limit and the intersection of the axes being neutral. However there are entire books written about circumplexes and it could be that there are various interpretations. The quote that I posted earlier in this thread came from an online except of an out of print book on circumplexes and gave me the impression that all relevant data occurs on the circle itself and not inside of it. So the whole circumplex model is, to me, more of a mystery the more that I get in to it, which is compromising it's usefulness. (Insert Timothy Leary joke here.)

Interpersonal circumplex - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I have the Kindle version, it doesn't say much, if anything, about him.

Does anybody have any information on Strodach? I like some of his translations but find his commentary disturbing. All I can find with a Google search is that he was born in 1905.

Apparently there was lively debate in ancient times as to what exactly amber is, and it’s origin:

https://ambers.netlify.app/intro/9/

There seem to have been varying opinions on this point. From footnote 41 in this article:

The Properties of Amber

Quire is a digital publishing framework built on top of the Hugo static site generator. Generate Web, PDF, and print books (with Epub coming soon) from a…

www.getty.edu

"The early Greek philosopher Thales of Miletos is credited by Diogenes Laertius as the first to recognize amber’s magnetism: “Arguing from the magnet and from amber, he attributed a soul or life even to inanimate objects” (Diogenes Laertius 1.24, vol. 1, ed. and trans. R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 184 [London, 1993]). E. R. Caley and J. C. Richards, Theophrastus on Stones (Columbus, 1956), p. 117, argue that this claim rests on shaky ground; that Thales was the first to mention the property can be inferred only indirectly from Diogenes Laertius’s statement: “Aristotle and Hippias say that, judging by the behaviour of the lodestone and amber, he also attributed souls to lifeless things.” Caley and Richards consider the possibility “that it was Hippias who said that Thales understood the attractive property of amber, but there is no way of confirming such an inference because the works of Hippias are not extant.” Plato (Timaeus 80c) alludes to amber’s magnetism but denies that it is a real power of attraction. Aristotle does not mention amber in the relevant section of On the Soul (De Anima 1.2.405A). Thus, following Caley and Richards, Theophrastus is the earliest extant account. If Thales did describe amber’s static electricity, he may have done so based on his observation of wool production, which used amber implements: distaff, spindle, and whorls. I owe this observation to Schwarzenberg 2002, who calls attention not only to the famous wool of Miletos, but also to the number of extant seventh-century spinning tools. Pliny notes that Syrian women used amber whorls in weaving and that amber picks up the “fringes of garments,” and also comments on amber’s electrostatic property. But, unlike Plato, he thinks its magnetic property is like that of iron. Plutarch (Platonic Questions 7.7) explains that “the hot exhalation released by rubbing amber acts in the same ways as the emanations from the magnet. That is, it displaces air, forming a vacuum in front of the attracted object and driving air to the rear of it”: De Lapidibus, ed. and trans. D. E. Eichholz (Oxford, 1965), p. 200, n.b."

You may have addressed this and I may have missed it, but I was intrigued by the similarity of "meteorology" and "meteor." Apparently Greek ta meteōra means "the celestial phenomena, things in heaven above," plural of meteōron, literally "thing high up."

"Specific sense of 'fireball in the sky, shooting star' is attested from 1590s. Atmospheric phenomena were formerly classified as aerial meteors (wind), aqueous meteors (rain, snow, hail), luminous meteors (aurora, rainbows), and igneous meteors (lightning, shooting stars). All the other senses have fallen away." From:

meteorology | Origin and meaning of meteorology by Online Etymology Dictionary

METEOROLOGY Meaning: "science of the earth's atmosphere, scientific study of weather and climate," especially with a view to… See definitions of meteorology.

www.etymonline.com

meteor | Origin and meaning of meteor by Online Etymology Dictionary

METEOR Meaning: "any atmospheric phenomenon," from Old French meteore (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin meteorum… See definitions of meteor.

www.etymonline.com

meteorite | Origin and meaning of meteorite by Online Etymology Dictionary

METEORITE Meaning: "rock or metallic mass of extraterrestrial origin that falls to earth after streaking across the sky as… See definitions of meteorite.

www.etymonline.com

This is from DL Book 1, Mensch translation:

24 And some, including the poet Choerilus, say he was the first to declare that souls are immortal. He was the first to discover the course of the sun from solstice to solstice, and the first, according to some, to say that the size of the sun is one seven hundred and twentieth part of the solar circle, <and that the size of the moon is the same fraction of the lunar circle.> He was the first to call the last day of the month the thirtieth, and the first, as some say, to reason about nature.

25 Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed souls even to inanimate objects, arguing from the magnet and from amber.

Unfortunately I can't find ψυχή in any Greek version online but it's likely due to my ignorance   Don do you have a Greek to English comparison to verify that that's the word?

"Soul" in this sense almost sounds like "life force." I wonder if the concept has evolved over time?

Me neither, I just happened to be reading that!

From Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates:

"Aristotle reports that Thales believed magnets possess soul because they move iron, and infers that he judged the soul to be a thing that causes motion.18 [Aristotle, On the Soul 1.2 405a19 = DK 11A22] Thales also held that amber (which has magnetic properties when rubbed or heated) possesses soul.19 [Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 1.24 = DK 11A1]

It is hard to know what to make of these statements. The idea that the soul is the principle of life was widespread in Greek thought. The presence of soul makes a thing alive; when a living thing dies, it no longer has a soul. Thus, Aristotle held that plants and animals possess souls. He held further that motion is characteristic of life, especially in his broad sense of “motion,” which includes growth and changes in quality—“motions” which even plants possess. Thus, the presence of soul, and therefore of life, implies motion.

Thales attributes soul to things not normally thought to be alive. Is he proposing a version of hylozoism, the view that matter has life, so that life is found in all things whatever? Also, since magnets and amber cause other things to move, is Thales’ point that the notion of soul should be extended to include things that themselves are motionless but make other things move?"

This showed up in my feed and may be of interest in the near future. It's a (very) brief examination of the end of Book 6, in an historical context. I don’t remember Sedley's conclusions and whether or not this reinforces his point of view but I'll toss this into the mix. BTW I didn’t see him referenced anywhere in this paper.

"Supreme power and great wealth may, to some degree, protect us from other men; but security in general depends upon peace of mind and social detachment." PD14, Epicurus Wiki

Quote from Don

Is it me or do the "two coexistent aspects" sound somewhat like the arousal axis on the circumplex?

Don I think I need some translations but to my way of thinking regarding Nikolsky's quote in #28, tranquility and painlessness correspond to places on the the arousal axis and the valence axis, respectively. And as you say it seems like the passive aspect and the active aspect could correspond to the arousal axis. I'm not sure about that though; the circumplex and kinetic/katastematic are two completely different models and it's probably a stretch to equate them too closely.

As to the lack of a neutral state, I think that it has practical significance in visualizing and understanding pleasure in addition to logical arguments. Understanding the interaction of degrees of pleasure and arousal is useful in finding guidance from your feelings. As LFB explains, our feelings are often influenced by things we don't expect. The more we understand and notice about our feelings, including whether or not we have a neutral state, the better we can use them for guidance.

Getting back to the original post in this thread, I believe the Dopamine Nation author stated that there is a neutral state of dopamine (arousal, production, reaction?). I may be way off base, but I think that this corresponds to one axis in the circumplex model. Regardless, it seems to be another contemporary neuroscientific approach to pleasure and it might be interesting to compare this to the circumplex

That's an excellent question! Apparently it's not as I've been interpreting it. I've been thinking of the circle as a limit, but some googling reveals:

Circumplex: a circular depiction of the similarities among multiple variables. (APA Dictionary of Psychology)

The circumplex model focuses on determining how traits and emotions are structurally similar, and its underlying assumption is that a relatively seamless circular odering, or circumplex, is an economical description of the relations among traits and emotions. (from an introduction to an out of print book on circumplexes)

So I think that anything being mapped would occur on the circle and not within it. This is actually even more interesting because the intersection of the axes could be considered a neutral state, but if all states in this model must occur on the circle itself then there is no neutral state.

Perhaps someone else is more familiar with this idea?

More on the affective circumplex (pleasure graph?):

It doesn't rank pleasures such as mental v visual or chocolate ice cream v pistachio.

"Absence of pain" (or absence of unpleasantness) would be anywhere on or to the right of the arousal axis. So it's not a mystical state, it's a range of "pleasures" including elation, gratification and serenity at any given time.

Correcting my previous post, maximum pleasure would be any point on the circle to the right of the arousal axis. So maximum pleasure might involve being very calm, but it might also involve being totally stoked, man. Or anywhere on the right side of the circle in between.

Quote from Cassius

Godfrey so you are saying she sums pleasure and pain together to get a "net result" number which she then charts?

No, what she calls pleasantness and unpleasantness are represented by opposite directions on an axis of hedonic valence (+ and -). This axis is intersected by an axis of arousal, with intensity of calm in one direction and intensity of agitation in the other direction. I don't think she's trying to describe pleasure and pain; she's trying to illustrate what her data is showing her regarding what she calls "affect".

Epicurus didn't have access to today's neuroscience. He was working with observations and against Platonic abstractions. LFB's work is among the latest neuroscience so I find it extremely interesting and potentially useful that her conclusions in many ways seem to correspond with Epicurus' conclusions. Her "affective circumplex" is a modern model which is devoid of Platonic distraction. As an initial observation, I interpret "affect" as similar to "the faculty of feelings". As such, what might be considered maximum pleasure would be a point on the "pleasant" side of the hedonic valence axis and intersecting the circumscribing circle. This would represent maximum pleasantness with neither too much agitation or too much calm.

Since this thread began with a modern science topic, it might be pertinent to mention Lisa Feldman Barrett. As I understand it she seems to consider "affect" to be a type of guiding faculty. She pictures affect as a combination of pleasant/unpleasant along, say, an x axis, and calmness/agitation along, say, a y axis. One's affect at a given moment would be described by a point somewhere in the two dimensional space defined by these two axes.

I find this conception useful because it illustrates 1) that "pleasure" isn't the endpoint of an arrow or the center of a target but a combination of factors including pleasantness and arousal. And 2) calmness combined with unpleasantness would be considered lethargy (or something similar). When people speak of "without pain" or "without disturbance" and interpret those as pleasure, I think it helps to look at this 2D model to understand more of the nuance involved.

So LFB, as I recall, refers to positive or negative affect as a neurological guide which we might be able to equate to pleasure or pain. Although hers isn't the language of Epicurus, I find it a helpful way to understand pleasure as the guide/goal.