Posts by Godfrey

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It's not something like this philosopher said this, or this is said elsewhere in a particular passage of the text of this and that scholar or thinker with a particular quote of a context of this and that... That is not philosophy. That is Philology which is a study of what has been said of something.

For better or for worse, there is a necessary philological component to this particular philosophy. In modern philosophy the complete original works of various philosophers can be read. Only a small fraction of Epicurus' original works survive. Much of what we have to work with are secondary sources and fragments, so it's important to understand the context of this and that in order to properly address the abstractions.

Note: this may serve as an example of what can happen when fragments of the ancient scrolls are cited and the context isn't clear. What may be intended as humor instead becomes a redefinition or repudiation.

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But when we say that pleasure is good, that must depend upon the signification we give to the word good. If by good we mean only pleasant, then it is indisputable, but if by good we mean morally right, just, or reasonable, or in a physical sense, conducive to health, nothing can be more clearly false.

I've not read the entire dialogue, so I'm speaking out of context. With that in mind, this quote does sound very Platonic, also maybe utilitarian. The response that comes to mind is to read PDs 5, 8, 10, 17, 20, 22, 25, 26, 29 and 30 regarding pleasure and 31-39 regarding justice/morality. The statement that pleasure is not conducive to physical health contradicts the very basis of pleasure!

The ending does point in a different direction though

Google Podcasts is a free Android app that is downloaded from the Google Play Store. It used to be part of Google Play Music, but some time ago it was split off on its own. That's what I use to listen to podcasts on my phone and I've been happy with it. In the Play Store it says it's been downloaded 5,000,000 times and is rated 4.6 out of 5, so it seems pretty popular.

Looking forward to Episode 2!

My preferred podcast app is Google Podcasts for what it's worth....

I'm interested in all of them. Best times for me are 2pm-9pm Pacific time (5pm-12am Eastern) M-F; 11am-4pm Pacific (2pm-7pm Eastern) weekends. Available, but likely to be intermittent, for other times.

I plan to be more available than I have been for the last few months

As I understand it, life is the greatest good. Pleasure is the guide to and goal of life.

Loved it! Great discussion, and the amount of text covered was just right in that I was able to review the material in several translations afterwards.

Lots of great insights. One comment I enjoyed was the idea that Lucretius had experience with people giving short shrift to the philosophy: a personal touch that I never would have picked up on.

Kudos for all the hard work

Regarding Stenger: I've begun reading God and the Atom. He's a great source as he is coming from the Epicurean perspective. His book presents science as a 2500 year chain of theorizing, finding evidence, theorizing further, finding more evidence, etc. What this means to us laymen is that when we read a news story on the most current theory, we lack most of the building blocks leading up to it.

Which points to the difficulty of simplifying Stenger: how can you simplify this 2500 year chain?

Here's a companion piece to the article that Elayne linked to, this one dealing with the Big Bang:

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/…n-of-all-things

The author diagrams several types of "creation" scenarios, finally pointing out that knowledge of how things began is probably beyond our grasp. Although he says this shouldn't stop us from trying. Of course, I might add, only so long as it brings us pleasure!

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When you are sick Godfrey are you actually completely oblivious to how bad you feel when you read?

Excellent question!

I just tried an experiment: I went outside and stood in the sun and watched my perceptions. I experienced the sensation of the sun's heat and the sensation of my sore throat simultaneously. In terms of the feelings of pleasure or pain, I experienced pleasure from the sun's heat, but only the sensation of the sore throat.

Another experiment: I've got a very stiff neck, which is more painful than my sore throat. I looked at a picture that brings me pleasure, then while continuing to look at the picture I turned my body into a very uncomfortable position for my neck. I still felt pleasure from looking at the picture, while I felt the sensation of a stiff neck. Continuing to move, I felt pain in my neck and just the sensation of the picture, without the pleasure.

Regarding reading, when I'm totally focused on reading I don't notice any pain, but often I'm in kind of a spacey midway point where I'm experiencing neither pleasure or pain.

What this suggests to me is that there's a subtle difference (which I can't put my finger on now in my spacey midway point) between sensations and feelings. Pleasure and pain are a response to sensations (and to anticipations and to thought) and it's possible to experience a sensation without experiencing noticeable pleasure or pain. If sensations are relatively mild, then feelings are only noticeable by the attention that we give to them. This can be misconstrued as a "neutral state".

Unfortunately I'm in a NyQuil haze so I'm not sure if I'm making any sense

This brings to mind studies on multi-tasking. I've not read the studies, but summaries I've seen in articles from time to time generally state that we can only focus on one task at a time. Therefore "multi-tasking" is actually rapidly shifting attention back and forth from one task to another.

Similarly, a perception would include only pleasure or pain but as one's perceptions shift, so does one's experience of pleasure or pain. For instance, right now I've got the flu and generally feel pain. If I get engrossed in a good book I feel pleasure even though the pain of sickness is still there, I'm just not perceiving it.

Which brings also to mind the much more extreme example of Epicurus on his deathbed, where he was enjoying pleasurable memories even while dying a painful death.

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My intuition about indivisibility is that without it, it might be easier to propose a "god of the gaps"-- a supernatural force whose effects are hiding out in the unmapped territory.

Elayne, I've never heard the phrase "god of the gaps", but that's exactly why I'm interested in this topic. Many of the terms thrown around from modern physics can lead the uninformed layman such as myself to consider such an idea. To address that I'm attempting to get more informed, and from what I gather Stenger's book takes that on pretty directly. We'll see!

Cassius I'll dive into God and the Atom after the new year, hopefully I won't drown! I'll post as I come up for air

Oops I crossed posts with your last 2. Is the Epicurean Atomism essay online or just in the CCtoE book?

Jumping from the 20 tenets thread....

Cassius, I was curious about Victor Stenger from reading the SofE post that I indirectly linked to in the tenets thread. From browsing on Amazon, his book God and the Atom looks to be exactly what I'm looking for: a discussion of particle theory from an Epicurean perspective. I think I'll start with that book and see where it leads me.

Here's a link to a previous post on the subject:

Fields, Particles, and the Reality We Live In

First, fwiw I find this discussion quite valuable in challenging and clarifying my understanding.

Elli as one who knows nothing about Greek, I've been curious about that word autarchy so thanks for that clarification.

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Objection to SOE6: There is a component to this that was essential to Epicurus and is controversial, and that is the issue about whether the elemental particles are themselves indivisible. Epicurus appears to have held that indivisibility is essential for a number of reasons, most apparently leading to to the need to point to something that is ultimately unchanging in order for the regularity we see in the universe to be grounded in nature and not in supernatural gods. I agree with him that the issue of indivisibility is critical and needs to be explicitly stated.

This is best split off into another thread: my sketchy understanding of atomic/subatomic particles ends at around 1978. What current sources of information are there on the subject that are comprehensible to a layman? I think some study of this would be useful in order to examine how current thinking aligns with Epicurus' conception of atoms. Much of the current understanding seems to be theoretical, as was Epicurus'. I don't want to become a nuclear physicist but I think it's a fertile topic for study and discussion. Particles, waves, energy, theoretical process... enough science to contribute to the philosophy. (I think we've touched on this elsewhere but I haven't tracked it down yet.)

Happy holidays to all! Cassius much gratitude to you for providing us with a place to study, interact and learn. Here's to a great 2020!

I'm out of commission until the new year. Spending time with in-laws through Christmas (trying not to go mental), taking a family road trip after that.

Happy Twentieth, all!