Posts by Godfrey

Quote from Cassius

There are many different ways of looking at things and therefore lots of charts, but I am tempted to say in the fundamental abstract that the first question is always as stated in "VS71. Every desire must be confronted by this question: What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished, and what if it is not?"

In my own mind I have a very hard time separating "desire" from "pleasure and pain" and "choice and avoidance" or even "willpower," and that's a major reason I have a problem separating out "desire" as if it is some fundamental of human nature apart from everything else. I think they are all a part of a bigger picture and acting as if there is a "desire" part of your brain that acts totally on its on is going to lead to lots of problems.

Cassius there's a lot to chew on here, but at the risk of oversimplification I'll take a quick stab at it before dinner

VS71 is a great way to analyze this. To my understanding, desire can be considered something that motivates me. The object of one's desire is, for example, a new car or true love. Or, in my current case, dinner. What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished is, ultimately, pleasure or pain. I think that it's pretty much as simple as that.

Desire and pleasure/pain, then, are two different things. Desire is the motivator, pleasure/pain is the result. The only qualification is that some desires might be considered pains. But they are still a motivator in that they make you want to do something. The way that you choose to eliminate that pain can lead to either pleasure or to more pain, so it's helpful to think what categories of desire might be involved as you choose/avoid how to eliminate that pain in order to obtain the resultant pleasure.

At least for me, willpower is another subject.

I think that it can be instructive to read some simplified neuroscience books to get a better grasp on the subject. Obviously Epicurus wasn't privy to that, but his intuition was remarkably close as far as I can tell. I'm guessing that Don and others may have something to add....

But for now, I think that I shall choose my natural/necessary desire for dinner over my desire to philosophize. All philosophy begins in the stomach, after all.

Titus it's interesting that you mention the Stoic "what's in my power." As I was thinking about the desires in my first post above, that kept popping into my head. Much to my discomfort! Thanks for reminding me of the benefits of the categories, with which I firmly agree.

But there comes a point where the fullness of pleasure is elusive, and not due to imaginary fears or social media. And even when our basic needs are safely met and the flowers smell nice and the zip lines are well greased. Life is full of fears and disturbances beyond the gods and the afterlife and I think Epicurus was addressing those as well. Sometimes simple pleasures and having met our needs is sufficient for the fullness of pleasure. Sometimes additional reasoning in the midst of upheaval (of whatever type) is called for.

PD16 Chance steals only a bit into the life of a wise person: for throughout the complete span of his life the greatest and most important matters have been, are, and will be directed by the power of reason. (St-Andre)

Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

I guess my wording wasn't very accurate, as I wasn't trying to imply that at all. There can be great mental pleasure in reliving memories of past pleasures and accomplishments when one is infirm. But everyone has different ideas. There's the half-joking phrase "pain is pleasure," which for some may ring true but for others is sheer lunacy. I read today of an ultra-marathoner speaking of her "pain cave." Not sure what to make of that!

I recently met a former (1980s) Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe of bodybuilding. He was really quite inspiring: amazing energy and joie de vivre, and a true mentor to innumerable bodybuilders. It was a real eye opener for me, although I have no plans to take up bodybuilding.

Anyway, I'm off to tune iinto some Olympic volleyball

Unlimited seems to me to overlap with what Epicurus refers to as groundless, which can be either natural or unnatural according to the PDs as I read them.

Seeming to produce harm, in PD30, could be considered a net result of pain over pleasure. But as Martin points out, that comes down to individual preferences or circumstances.

Take the timely example of Olympic athletes: the effort of training and intensity of competition may leave them with various degrees of debilitating injuries and no guarantee of success. But, for whatever reason, these athletes have determined that the pleasure will outweigh the pain. Maybe that pleasure is in following the dream, maybe in reliving memories of the pleasures of competing at the highest level. And maybe in reliving these memories while they hobble around on artificial joints.

Quote from Kalosyni

As far as I understand, only unnatural would be defined as due to groundless opinion.

That was my thinking, too, but then I read this:

PD30 Among natural desires, those that do not bring pain when unfulfilled and that require intense exertion arise from groundless opinion; and such desires fail to be stamped out not by nature but because of the groundless opinions of humankind.

So my current understanding is that the difference between natural/unnecessary and unnatural/unnecessary desires is that the latter "seem to produce harm."

So I just read through the PDs with the subject of upheaval in mind, and they appear to be written for just that. Who knew?

In the historical context, it would seem that that is exactly what they were written for.

During the political wackiness in the month of July 2024 in the United States, I was giving some thought to how an Epicurean might best apply the philosophy to their life when the world around them seems to be spinning out of control. But times of upheaval are many and varied: they can include political hostility or uncertainty, natural disasters, personal or family tragedies and many similar events. Following is a loose list of thoughts to hopefully stimulate thought and discussion on how the categories of desire can be useful, perhaps therapeutic, in confronting chaos. At the moment, I haven’t got much further than compiling this list. And of course many of the questions will only apply to a particular type of upheaval, and the answers will be different for everyone and in each situation.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CATEGORIES OF DESIRE:

Natural and necessary desires: a) some for happiness; b) some for physical health; c) some for life itself

Natural and unnecessary desires: a) due to groundless opinion; b) don’t bring pain if unfulfilled; c) require intense exertion

Unnatural and unnecessary desires: a) due to groundless opinion; b) don’t bring pain if unfulfilled; c) hard to achieve; 4) seem to produce harm

EPICUREAN EXERCISES - CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, EACH AS A SEPARATE EXERCISE:

What type of desire is it to wish for my favorite sports team to win? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

What type of desire is it to wish for my preferred political candidate or party to win? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

What type of desire is it to wish for safety in the event of a natural disaster? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

What type of desire is it to wish for the health of a loved one? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

What type of desire is it to wish to live to the ripe old age of 150? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

What type of desire is it to wish for a loved one to live to the ripe old age of 150? How can I most fruitfully respond to this desire?

MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS:

How much of the upheaval is hostile to me as belonging to a particular group?

What are the potential fruits and harms of looking out for the interests and/or safety of people or communities outside of my particular “tribe?”

At what point does engagement cause harm? To whom? What kind of harm: mental, physical, economic or other?

At what point does lack of engagement cause harm? To whom? What kind of harm: mental, physical, economic or other?

At what point may the upheaval affect my safety or the safety of my loved ones?

Is it natural and necessary to assure the health, safety and well-being of those who are important to me?

How can I maintain my ataraxia while still being concerned about the health and well-being of your loved one(s)? Is this the objective of Epicurean practice?

How can I maintain a balance of pleasure over pain during a particular crisis? Is this the objective of Epicurean practice?

Is my goal to maintain ataraxia, or a balance of pleasure over pain during the particular time of upheaval, or is to survive in the most prudent manner to maintain a balance of pleasure over pain over time? Or both?

What does PD04 have to say about this, if anything? "Pain does not last continuously in the flesh; instead, the sharpest pain lasts the shortest time, a pain that exceeds bodily pleasure lasts only a few days, and diseases that last a long time involve delights that exceed their pains." (St-Andre translation). Does this apply to mental pain as well, or does this imply that I can have a stable mental state in times of adversity?

I'm realizing that this has become fairly wide ranging.... In the event that any discussion comes of this, it might be best to manage it in various new threads which link back to this one. Anyway, that's all I've got!

Coincidentally I've begun reading The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo from the USC Longevity Center. Although I'm not sure what to make of the diet, the first two chapters struck me as interesting when considering the Epicurean gods and theories as to how they might maintain their incorruptibility.

Unfortunately I'm not able to provide a more detailed analysis at this time, but it's worth a look in this regard.

What is a good Epicurean exercise that you can do using a smartwatch? Simple!

Stop wearing your smartwatch for 1 week. Notice and respond to your sensations and feelings. And your preconceptions.

Enjoy!

So if I'm reading correctly Eikadistes , you're saying that "amount" isn't a part of the original Greek? Am I understanding that correctly?

(Shouldn't the big jar be pouring into the little jar?)

I agree with Cassius ' conclusion in post #3. The way I think of PD19 is: a life consists of a finite amount of time. For an individual, the amount of pleasure in their life will be limited by the length of their life. Infinite time is therefore irrelevant to calculating the amount of pleasure in a particular life. This interpretation, to me, is confirmed by reading the PD in context as Don has provided.

The same limit would apply to pain: one needn't fear an eternity of pain in the sixth circle of hell. Your lifetime is finite, and all of your pleasure and pain will be contained within that finite lifetime.

Happy Twentieth, all!

It's said that young Epicurus wrestled with the problem of Chaos. This would naturally have lead him to the study of infinity and beginnings, and perhaps limits.

I vote for (1) and (2), although I don't think that even modern physicists agree on the answer to this! I'm curious as to what others have to say on the matter!

It seems to me that Epicurus would have noted that you don't see any naturally occurring exact duplications and factored that into his thinking. He would have been aware of identical twins, however, so that begs the question as to the depth of his knowledge of them. Even then, I think that he would have considered identical twins as a class, meaning that there would be infinite examples of identical twins and not of a specific twin or set of twins.

For an entertaining and sometimes amusing look at (3) in particular, and possibly (4), I recommend watching the last few Spider-Man films, both live action and animated. Also, Marvel's Doctor Strange movies. In fact, Marvel has been exploring the "multiverse" idea in several of their franchises.

Then there's Nietzche's eternal recurrence. I'm not too familiar with it, but it seems to me that this was just a thought experiment and not a serious proposal of the way things are. But I could be wrong on that.

Quote from Cassius

I don't really know if it adds anything to talk about "dichotomies" if that is all the word means. It's the details behind that which will need to be examined

That is exactly my point: the only reason to mention dichotomies is that "mortal" and "immortal" are seemingly set up as opposites (what I'm calling dichotomous) by Cicero. I guess the point I would make is that, after reasoning it out, setting them up in that way is meaningless and therefore, to me, Cicero is setting his argument up in a way that is basically irrelevant. However, if there's textual evidence that Epicurus set up his argument in the same way, then I'd wonder whether I'm missing something.

As for the possible immortality of the gods, isn't it stated somewhere that Epicurus proposed that the gods are made of a different type of matter? I'm again exposing my ignorance here: I can't point to a source of this idea, and it's not something that I would posit. But I can see how someone who was developing atomic theory more or less from scratch might consider such an idea if they were convinced of the existence of material, immortal (and blissful) beings with no beginning and no end, in the same way that atoms have no beginning or end. These beings would have all of the characteristics that we commonly attribute to them in our discussions, but they would at the same time individually have no beginning or end due to the type of matter from which they're made. So my question is whether there is any credible textual evidence that Epicurus considered this to be a valid possibility. 2300 years ago this may have seemed reasonable, even if it doesn't seem so to us moderns.

At any rate, I'm not espousing this idea, I'm just trying to flesh out the arguments and the associated reasoning.

Since my mind is spiraling like a balloon spewing air....

Could it be that Epicurus believed in beings which are immortal, not just imperturbable or incorruptible as we interpret them? We think in terms of a Big Bang and an expanding universe whereas he was doing some of the original reasoning regarding infinity. I seem to recall that he s the gods as being made of something special, in addition to living in the intermundia. Thinking as someone living 2000 years ago, why wouldn't this have existed infinitely into the past as well as the future?

OK, I need a nap now.

Quote from Cassius

Right now my best guesstimate on that is that of things that are possible, in an infinite and eternal universe, though in any locality some things are more common than others, there is -- at once or over time -- an infinite number of each and every possible thing, and "infinite number" is equal to "infinite number."

To paraphrase, for anything that is possible in an infinite and eternal universe, there is an infinite number of that thing. From that it can be said that anything that exists, exists in the same quantity as any other thing spread throughout the universe. Infinite bananas, infinite 1965 Mustangs, infinite deathless beings....

I just had to type this in order to wrap my head around it.

So, although it's presented as a dichotomy, an equal number of perishable and imperishable beings really isn't a dichotomy. It's not even a spectrum. We know that there are perishable beings, and we can posit that there are imperishable beings by reasoning about a spectrum of beings with varying perishability. Assuming from this that there are imperishable beings, the number of them will be infinite, just like the number of perishable beings or the number of pencils. Put another way, the number of bananas cannot be less than the number of monkeys. The fact that monkeys eat bananas means nothing in this regard.

Another question regards "two alternatives equally possible." What are the relative quantities of two alternatives that are not equally possible? Wouldn't they still be equal as both are infinite in number? As long as one of a thing exists, there are an infinite number of that thing since there is never just one of any thing. Is this correct? The degree of possibility shouldn't enter into it. This in fact would be a potential dichotomy: either something exists, or it doesn't. If it doesn't there are none of it, if it does there are the same number of it as there are of any other thing, which is an infinite number.

Quote

By this Velleius seems to mean a law of averages or chances; the law, namely, that of two alternatives equally possible, each will occur with equal frequency if an infinite number of cases be taken.

I finally realized what it is that I can't reconcile about isonomia, at least as presented by the great deceiver Cicero. As presented, it appears to depend on examining dichotomies. But, in general, I don't think that infinity implies dichotomies other than as described in Newton's laws. Take the gods, for example: I think that we all agree that there is the possibility of a spectrum of beings, some of which may be considered to be lower and some higher. But lower how? Higher how? And how do you compare theoretical quantities in a spectrum? Because Cicero (as Vellius) is comparing "an equal number" of mortals and immortals. How do you split a spectrum into a dichotomy?

Even thinking of "mortal" and "immortal" as possibilities sets up a logical fallacy. Since there is nothing immortal other than atoms and void (and you can't even accurately say that there is an equal quantity of atoms and void), using the word immortal is inaccurate as we've often discussed on the forum. So we're left with living things: how do you split living things into two categories? The only operation that seems to make sense is to chunk the spectrum into several categories, then say that there is an equal possibility of each category occurring. And one or more of those categories may have figured out how to live forever (give or take). But that isn't at all what Cicero (as Vellius) is saying. He's saying that for every mortal there is an immortal. More logically, I suspect that what he's really saying is that for everything natural there is something supernatural. That's his agenda here, that there's an earthly realm and a supernatural realm. And we have few if any other sources to compare his take on isonomia with, so as so often with Cicero, we're sent down a rabbit hole trying to make sense of his words.

In terms of isonomia, comparing forces such as creation and destruction makes intuitive sense to me. But comparing quantities of things does not, at least in the way that Cicero has done. And it must always be remembered that Cicero has an agenda, and that his agenda is not favorable to Epicurus.

Quote from Cassius

We could probably go on and on with textual citations, but if "the production of harm of any kind to any person" were considered to be an ironclad Epicurean rule I cannot see the rest of the philosophy making consistent sense.

That certainly wouldn't be an ironclad rule: we don't even have that rule against harming ourselves! (PD10) I'm seeing the phrasing as just not placing a limit on the desire being evaluated in terms of who or what one might use in their evaluation. On one level it implies that we might wish to evaluate how any "collateral damage" might come back to bite us. On another level it works along with PD05 in including the instrumental use of virtues.