Posts by Godfrey

Here's the pdf; I mistakenly uploaded it in another thread.

Yes he does. This particular book is a history from Democritus to the year the book was written, and quantum theory is included in that. He has many other books and it could be that another one deals with it in greater depth for those interested. His basic premise in all of his books seems to me to be that modern science refutes the belief in the supernatural.

Victor Stenger, at least in God and the Atom, seems quite favorable to Epicurus. I posted a review of sorts: God and the Atom by Victor Stenger: a very brief review. That strained the limits of my non-scientific background.

Here's the pdf from the expired link above.

It's a fascinating and involved question as to what Epicurus thought of religion and the gods. There are some threads here addressing the "idealist" vs the "realist" viewpoints. These basically correspond to the view that Epicurus considered the gods to be a mental construct for contemplation vs the view that he considered the gods to be real. The thread that Don linked to above has an essay that presents a case for the realist interpretation, which I found thought provoking.

As mentioned in the essay, the prolepses are intricately intertwined with the conception of the gods, along with the idea that we know of the gods from extremely fine particles that they emit. These two subjects (gods and prolepses) just might be the least understood ideas in EP.

The issue of how we interpret these ideas today adds yet another layer of complexity. On recent threads we've discussed justice and truth as prolepses; are the gods a prolepsis as Epicurus apparently states? Today many (if not most) of us are indoctrinated from childhood into believing in a single god. Prolepses, however, are "pre-conceptual" and more primitive, and to the best of my limited knowledge, primitive societies believed in multiple gods (although not of the Epicurean kind). To me there seems to be a prolepsis of awe/wonder at the immensity of the universe, but does this translate to a prolepsis of gods? Didn't primitive gods function as explanations of the mysteries of existence? And didn't Epicurus, and subsequent science, dispel many of these mysteries?

But I'm rambling....

This paper hit my inbox this week, and it's a worthwhile read presenting a case for the "realist" interpretation of the Epicurean gods. It also has some discussion of the prolepses, as is appropriate when considering the gods:

The Polytheism of the Epicureans

However the reason that I'm posting this is because of some of the references included. On pages 30-31, he includes the text of a letter purportedly written by Epicurus and found in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri [(wikipedia) and (google books)], with which I'm totally unfamiliar. The source of his reference is an essay by A.J. Festugière, ‘Épicure et ses Dieux,’ in a 1946 collection Mythes et Religions, edited by P.E. Couchoud, publisher Presse Universitaires de France-Paris. Apparently this is translated into English in Epicurus and His Gods by C.W. Chilton.

In addition to thoughts on the article, is anybody familiar with any of these sources? I'm curious where else they might lead....

"Whiplash" really is a satisfying movie on many levels: nuance despite all the drama, well written, well acted. I second the recommendation!

I've actually been thinking of taking up the blues harmonica as a form of breath work. Much simpler than the bagpipes, but I'll be taking into account the above comments. Very timely

Personally, although some games sound interesting to me I've never been very interested in playing them. When my kids were little I tried some of their games but was always put off by the open ended nature of the games. Back then I didn't have the time to get sucked into a game; now I prefer to have some idea of the time commitment before I get involved in just about any entertainment. Even if I binge watch a show, I know beforehand how many episodes there are and how many I might watch in one sitting.

So I guess for me it comes down to a personal time commitment. I've spent many years working digitally and am all too familiar with the phenomenon of getting sucked into the screen and not coming out for hours. There's a certain pleasure to that sense of "hyper-focus," but it can also be damaging. One of the benefits of stumbling into Epicurus' garden, for me, has been in re-connecting to the pleasures of the big picture.

This article showed up in my inbox and may or may not bear fruit regarding this:

The Popularity of Epicureanism in Late Republic Roman Society

Welcome Susan!

Quote from Susan Hill

One thing I am keen to get a better handle on is how Epicureanism approaches questions regarding consciousness and identity/self. I am coming out of a deep-dive into Vedanta, Yoga and Samkhya, where the nature of consciousness, and its various states, is the foundation of the entire metaphysics and soteriology. To jump from that to "atoms and void" has me thinking - "oh ok - so atoms are Prakriti and the void is Brahman or Purusha..." Lol. Not exactly a good approach, I know, but consciousness has to fit in there somewhere, no? I guess I am going to be hard pressed to find a Vedantin who can clarify the differences for me. Epicurianism does not seem to be as simple as the basic materialist theories I am familiar with.

This is an excellent question and would make a good topic for a new thread. As you suggest it's probably not very fruitful to try to relate Epicureanism to Indian philosophy. As I understand it, there is a supernatural component to the Indian theories and Epicurus is quite clear that there is no supernatural. Once the supernatural is introduced, which is scientifically unverifiable, the door is opened to all sorts of confusion and mischief. I've read that atomism developed in both Greece and India, however in India they maintained the supernatural while in Greece they did not.

In Epicureanism atoms combine into compounds, and as compounds get more complex, properties such as life and consciousness emerge which were not a part of the lesser components. There isn't any implied hierarchy such as shown in your attachment: everything arises from combinations of atoms. I think this is in line with modern science even though our study of atomic physics is 2000 years more sophisticated than that of the ancient Greeks. If you haven't listened to the Lucretius podcast it might be worthwhile as there are a few episodes where they discuss atoms in ancient times vs today.

What other materialist theories are you familiar with? It would be interesting to know what they are and how they compare to EP.

I had no idea: maybe I'll read up on Caesar.... The article is illuminating not just regarding Caesar and activism, but also has many examples of how to live as an Epicurean. It would be nice to find other lives to examine in this way.

To follow up Don's post, our truth is found through the sensations, prolepses and feelings. The value of a practicing Epicurean honoring that truth is consistent, not relative. We individually uncover what is "practical, prudent, just..." through this measure of the Canon. Therefore it's incumbent on us to gather the most reliable information available to us and to be extremely sensitive to our percepts so our actions will maximize our pleasure.

"Find the sweet spot" for maximum pleasure? Pretty slangy though. "Define the target" and "triangulate" seem like they're on the right track.... Something along the lines of "apex" or "peak" in the sense that on one side is not enough and on the other side is too much. "Optimum?"

I just Googled "sweet spot synomyms:" sweet spot definitely won't do lol!

From this it appears that fears and desires are opposite mental constructs. But there are visceral fears and desires as well. I'm thinking that Epicurus might say at this point that everyone knows from experience what "fear" and "desire" mean; what we need to understand is how to work with them.

Which leads us to the quotes above and to "limits." As we live in a world of atoms and void, limits would be different for each of us. Not the definition, which we know from experience, but where a limit occurs. Would a limit then be the sweet spot at which one achieves maximum pleasure?

In terms of the Canon, I think pleasure/pain is a reaction to a sensation or prolepsis more than to an action directly, sort of an ongoing feedback loop with feelings being the feedback. Physical actions cause sensations, to which feelings are reactions. Do mental actions stimulate prolepses to which feelings are a response? Since there's some uncertainty regarding the prolepses, I'm not sure if this holds. It seems logical though. Maybe I should say it feels right.

Are we in agreement that desires are distinct from pleasures?

As to desires v impulses, I'm thinking that that might be going too far down the rabbit hole to be useful. What's important regarding desires is evaluating them as to whether or not to pursue them. In order to do that we must be cognitively aware of them which is the point at which they become useful.

Exactly! But as I think further an impulse isn't cognitive/rational: it's an urge to act. A desire can be cognitive/rational or not.

For instance advertising is designed to create a desire for something. Maybe craving is a useful word. A desire/impulse/craving can stimulate a pathe/feeling as you describe.

Biologically, to my limited and simplistic understanding, dopamine is involved in anticipation, craving and desire. Serotonin is involved in pleasure/pain. To me this is a potentially helpful distinction, although I'm really not sure if this is scientifically accurate....

Maybe we should go ask Alice (I'm dating myself on that one!)

This is where I distinguish between faculties and impulses. I think that biologically it's a difference between serotonin and dopamine if I understand it correctly. I've been trying to clarify this for myself and I think it's an important detail although I may be in left field.

All pleasures are good, all pains are bad. These are faculties. But some desires are natural, some vain, some needed for life or for well being or other reasons. These are impulses, as I've been thinking of them. The removal of pain is a pleasure due to their dichotomous relationship. But the desire to remove pain might be pleasurable or it might not be.

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"You have to tell me if your reaction to that desire itself is pleasure or pain. Why are you pursuing it? Because the consequence of that desire leads to more pleasure than pain."

Bingo! It's not the desire itself that's a pleasure or pain, it's your reactions to it and to the consequences of it.

I didn't state that very well: I'm agreeing that there's no neutral state.

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1) An act (or state) is never neutral, but our lack of attention to the act may make it appear neutral.

This was intended as a rebuttal to someone who might think something is a neutral state.

As for the desire to remove the headache pain in your walk-through, I guess you could call that a pleasure of anticipation but I would just call it a desire to remove pain: an avoidance of pain. Same with the desire to locate and take medicine. But these are subjective: your experience might be the anticipation of the pleasure of relief, but I'm imagining being in the throes of the headache and just wanting to get rid of it. We both experience pleasure as it begins to dissipate. Further, although eating is generally a pleasurable experience, not so with taking a pill. Again, that's subjective but the relief of hunger or of the headache are both pleasures. My point is that daily experience is a constant interplay between pleasure and pain, our reactions to them and our choices and avoidances regarding them. This is biology, whether our goal is pleasure or the absence of pain. However our higher level choice of a goal affects how we approach everything and, at least to me, this is the key difference between our approach and Jordan's.

I brought up the neutral act/state because I think that that is a place where someone pursuing "absence of pain" would be likely to go astray, thinking that they're experiencing a "fancy pleasure" when they've really just dulled their feelings.

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Is the decision to take the pill pleasurable? According to Epicurus, it has to be pleasure or pain. Every action has to elicit a reaction either painful or pleasurable. He didn't leave any middle ground.

In this case, taking the pill is not necessarily pleasurable (unless you take it with honey as per Lucretius ). It is a reaction to the pain. If the pain goes away then that's pleasurable. So we're following the feelings as a guide to action. Pleasure can be an attraction and/or a reward, pain an aversion and/or punishment. We can either strive to elicit a feeling, or notice and respond to a feeling. Or one after the other. That's how we've evolved to operate, to my understanding.

But you're raising an interesting point Don in that taking a pill could be considered a neutral act. That brings two thoughts to mind. 1) An act (or state) is never neutral, but our lack of attention to the act may make it appear neutral. 2) An act (or state) may be subservient to another act or state and so may appear neutral because of 1). Which leads to 3) the more aware we are of our feelings, the more pleasure there is available to us. Which then becomes another argument against pursuing "absence."