Coincidentally this paper discussing isonomia showed up in my feed. I've only skimmed it as it's pretty academic, but what I gather is that isonomia refers to opposites and the idea that DeWitt is referring to is that in an infinite universe, if something exists, then so must it's opposite.
Apparently this relates to the pre-Socratic writer Alcmaeon's theory of health (ἰσονομία, equilibrium of opposite forces in the body) and disease (μοναρχία, domination of one excessive force).
In the past I've also been interested in the writing of Sarah Williams Goldhagen regarding embodied cognition. But she, as I recall, is a design critic. LFB is a neuroscientist and is more on point.
Here's one thread on her work:
They were everywhere and I didn't even know it! 
A Google search just informed me that the Cowsills' big hit was Hair. I had no idea... ah, nostalgia!
Joshua I like the compass analogy, but thinking about it further I have some reservations. The compass can show us where north is, but most often our goal isn't actually to travel north. So it's a reference, but pleasure is more properly a direct guide. I think this is one reason why True North has a troublesome Platonic feel.
As for the old man, it's not so much that he's followed the guide, or compass, of pleasure for his whole life. Speaking from my experience it's more a matter of learning from a series of mistakes to pay attention to the guide. Using another compass analogy: just as a compass wavers back and forth before settling on north, a young person is still wavering in search of the target but the old person has finished wavering and settled onto the target.
Off the top of my head, Buddhism is a religion that doesn't worship a god but follows its founder's teachings. So that might apply in some way to this discussion.
Pleasure is where I think the deepest questions arise as to how that faculty came to be - because the others all seem to be channeling data to it, where alone the "stop" and "go" signals arise.
This brings to mind the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett that Don and I have posted about previously. As I recall, she discussed in a podcast (I'm not sure if it's in her book) a million year old primitive life form as being a very early manifestation of the faculty. But she's not looking at the way Epicurus described things: modern neuroscience just seems to have a lot of overlap with his thinking.
In her book she describes "affect": a combination of pleasant/unpleasant and calm/agitation. She discusses the neural networks and systems involved, and the comparison to the Canon (with which she apparently is not familiar) is quite thought provoking.
For a non-Greek allegorical anecdote about the good as a noun:
I recently purchased a small ceramic sculpture. One day as I was observing and thinking about it, it occurred to me that it was precious in a certain way and that it could be instructive to compare it to "the good." How would I respond to it as something "precious?" Observe it, treat it with care, contemplate it, place it somewhere that I can maximize my opportunities to appreciate it.... Considering it precious, should I stress out over damaging or losing it or maximize my pleasure regarding it? I also realized that while it may seem precious to me, to someone else it may seem like junk! (But this realization digresses from my point.)
Well, naturally I arrived at the conclusion that the best thing to do is to maximize the pleasure that I can gain from this object. In this particular case the pleasures are primarily mental: observing the object, thinking about other pieces by the sculptor and the ideas she may be working with, trying to understand how it was constructed, thinking about what it is that I enjoy about it, noticing the various textures, remembering the pleasant circumstances in which I first encountered it, &c.... (I guess if I had a different disposition I may have concluded that it's my virtuous duty to care for it, but that's not where I ended up.)
My point is that it's possibly useful to think of the sculpture as a proxy for "life itself," and to think of my conclusion of the best thing to do as "the goal." Of course one may arrive at their own conclusions....
(For the record, the sculpture isn't all that precious but, personally, I'm enjoying it greatly.)
I hadn't thought of it in this context, but over the years I've derived much pleasure from geometry, trigonometry and basic math. They have been pleasurable in themselves to varying degrees, and also as useful tools to realize the joys of drawings, which often themselves were useful tools in the creation of a variety of objects and spaces.
In dealing with various theories of beauty and proportion, to me beauty and resonance in the resulting products invariably come down to the humanity and the feelings expressed. Without humanity and feelings, any coherent inner logic falls flat.
Furthermore, I can't say that geometry, trig or math ever provided me with any valuable insights; they assisted in refining and communicating other, more interesting and relevant ideas.
I like that she's very clear about logic being able to provide "valid" arguments, but not necessarilly "true" arguments, particularly that an argument can be valid but not necessarilly true.
This is what has always struck me about logic (not that I'm close to being an expert!). You can have an internally consistent argument that has no basis in reality, so what's the point?
Thanks for the podcast link, it looks interesting.
The feelings are the primary and the final guides for our little boats, but like the other canonical faculties they need to be considered and evaluated to be acted upon in the most advantageous way in each given situation.
Considering and evaluating are not part of the canon but they're definitely crucial to choosing and avoiding. They just tend to mislead without the canon and are therefore useless on their own.
That song is quite a time capsule!
Suppose it could be some kind of variation of the Plutarch statement about the greatest joy arising from escape from the greatest evil?
That's how I had read it, although without thinking of Plutarch. Epicurus Wiki is along the same lines:
To me, "life as the greatest good" is a fruitful thing to ponder but I probably wouldn't call it Epicurean, at least as I'm thinking about it at the moment. It begs the question "how do I respond to what is precious to me?" Some replies are: study it, appreciate it, respect it, use it fully, preserve it, learn from it, enjoy it fully.... Also, being overprotective of what is precious can lead to pain.
As an Epicurean I would turn to the guidance of pleasure/pain to understand how to deal with something precious to me: this emphasizes the faculty of Feelings and therefore that maximizing pleasure would be my "goal" in interacting with the precious thing. But a Stoic, for instance, might use virtue or duty as a guide or an end. This could bring them pleasure, but also great consternation.
What he's talking about here is not "good" as in just the adjective "good/bad" it's "the good" ταγαθον (tagathon) as in the goal, the telos, the Alpha/Omega, the beginning and the end of life. Pleasure = The Good. He's planting his flag for pleasure as The Good in opposition to those who would tout virtue, etc.
I was going to bring that up.... DeWitt makes a similar point except that as I recall he refers to the "greatest good" as life itself. Pleasure would then be the telos if I understand him correctly. Greatest good, good, telos, summum bonum... oh my!
Yes I agree it seems very similar to Lisa Feldman Barrett's work. 
It's interesting to me because he is by his own description not a philosopher and is studying effective strategies. So I guess we could expect that some things would end up in one philosophical camp and some in another, and that's what he gets. Some statements sound Epicurean to me, others very anti-Epicurean. Probably there are a lot of preconceived ideas, perhaps Aristotelean, that he is unconsciously working with as well.
There has been some discussion here as to how to define "happiness." Here is a brief article discussing how happiness is thought of in different cultures:
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/07/happiest-country-definition/619441/
Four different models of happiness:
- Happiness comes from good relationships with the people you love
- Happiness comes from a higher consciousness
- Happiness comes from doing what you love, usually with others
- Happiness comes from simply feeling good.
A point made in the article is that you can’t rank happiness, but you can classify it. It brings to mind the subjectivity of happiness, which in turn makes it difficult to define.
A very brief article on neuroscience for dummies, applicable to the Canon:
https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/interoception-how-to-improve-your-gut-feeling
The embedded video discusses feelings:
- Feeling is the process of perceiving what is going on in the organism when you are in the throes of an emotion.
- Feeling guides us in advance planning.
