Posts by SimonC

Quote from Joshua

"I was dead---" sometimes the word clinically or medically appears here, sometimes the word literally "---for 11 minutes and I went to heaven"---sometimes saw my past/future lives, or experienced the whole of being or some such. Generally the 'experience' is culturally and religiously dependant.

Clinical death is misleading, precisely because it is not necessarily death. If you've come back to tell me what happened while you were dead, you weren't dead. Your brain yet lived.

I agree, and we don't use that terminology in my country at all. If you live afterwards you weren't dead.

Quote from Hume's Enquiry, 73-76

For what is meant by liberty, when applied to voluntary actions? We cannot surely mean that actions have so little connexion with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other.

[...]

The only proper object of hatred or vengeance is a person or creature, endowed with thought and consciousness; and when any criminal or injurious actions excite that passion, it is only by their relation to the person, or connexion with him. Actions are, by their very nature, temporary and perishing; and where they proceed not from some cause in the character and disposition of the person who performed them, they can neither redound to his honour, if good; nor infamy, if evil. The actions themselves may be blameable; they may be contrary to all the rules of morality and religion: But the person is not answerable for them; and as they proceeded from nothing in him that is durable and constant, and leave nothing of that nature behind them, it is impossible he can, upon their account, become the object of punishment or vengeance. According to the principle, therefore, which denies necessity, and consequently causes, a man is as pure and untainted, after having committed the most horrid crime, as at the first moment of his birth, nor is his character anywise concerned in his actions, since they are not derived from it, and the wickedness of the one can never be used as a proof of the depravity of the other.

To summarise the above the way I see it:

- To say that an action is freely chosen by me means simply that it is an action that is consistent with my desires, personality etc.

- It is actually a good thing that the universe is deterministic according to Hume, since that means it is possible to make observations on peoples behavior to learn about their personality.

- In a universe with a strong, perhaps dualistic, free will, a moral person could commit a crime and still remain a moral person. To claim otherwise is to claim that a moral person has something in him that prevents him from being immoral or that a person that has committed a crime is no longer a moral person, which is conceding that actions are in some sense deterministic.

Question 1. Why is determinism bad?

From what I understand Epicurus thought that determinism was extremely bad and was very clear in distinguishing himself from Democritus on this matter. It is better to believe in supernatural gods than in determinism and all that.

I guess I don't see what is so bad about determinism. The way I see it we control our brains (and will) the same way that a christian may claim to "control their soul" - the question does not entirely make sense but you would probably describe that it acts according to certain principles given by god (or nature) and according to individual personality. Much like the brain. The christian does not need to posit a "soul-soul" or a "soul-soul-soul" etc to conclude that they have free will, so why not just stop at the material instead?

Question 2. Why is the swerve good?

I'm unclear about whether the swerve is Epicurus or Lucretius, but it is implied by Lucretius to ensure that humans have free will. This I have difficulty accepting. After all it is not "me" who is controlling the way the atoms swerve - that would be dualism - so in what way does the swerve improve my liberty? If atoms hitting each other at, let's say, 90 degree angles is not enough for free will, why should atoms hitting each other at 91 degree angles be so?

The swerve does get rid of the predictability of the universe. Perhaps this is what Epicurus was worried about? That it would be difficult to insist we have free will if "fate" is true.

What an interesting chapter! I was not very familiar with this material before. I wonder how much of it is explicit in the sources and how much is DeWitt extrapolating though.

Particularly impressive points as I understood them:

- The need for soul atoms (ie the nervous system, sort of) to interact with the body to give rise to sensation. This makes sense to me even though it is apparently a controversial issue in current philosophy. But it does seem to follow from the physics.

- The automatic vs intentional thinking, this is very perceptive psychology and also makes a lot of sense. It brings to mind the later dual process theory.

- The courtroom analogy. Is this entirely DeWitt? Again very clarifying and brings context to "all sensations are true".

I did not entirely grasp why it should be worse to think that Acheron might exist than to be sure that it does.

I also wonder what evidence could have led Epicurus to claim that the rational soul is situated in the chest. The Stoics apparently also thought this so perhaps it was a cultural idea? Or because you die if you get stabbed there?

Quote from Nate

"The point which Epicurus discusses after sensation is what he called by the technical term of προλήψις, anticipation or preconception. It is explained asa general idea stored up, a right opinion, a conception, or the memory of what has been more than once presented to us from without. When we apply a name to an object we can only do so by means of a previous conception corresponding to the name: and that conception is ultimately an image derived from the senses.

This is the Laertius view of prolepsis which DeWitt argues against, so should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

Being able to be summarised as a clear mental image can't be an essential feature of prolepsis since we know that Epicurus considered "justice" to be an example.

I'll vote for a Europe-friendly time.

I'd be up for a book club of AFDIA. I'd personally prefer reading it on my own time and discussing later. I'd be reading it for the first time.

I don't agree that Wittgenstein was much of a materialist. He says as much in the beginning of the Tractatus: "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." (Emphasis mine)

He goes on to insist that some facts are simply mystical and beyond cognition (or language) and that people who have mystical revelations are in fact accessing some sort of hidden or unspeakable truth.

I think the religious drive you describe is extremely common, the plethora of self-help / "become a stoic in 30 days" books is a testament to this.

How do you talk to people about Epicureanism? It's tricky.

You can't lead with hedonism or "live like a god" because of the suspicion pleasure is viewed with.

If you lead with the atomism or perception as basis of knowledge you will get agreement at least from the science types but it might be difficult to move on because they are still carrying unexamined Platonistic ideas and don't see the contradiction. "I agree the world is material but I want to believe in an afterlife".

For now I try not to teach my kids any nonsense. Perhaps one day Epicureanism will come back in a big way - maybe on the tail of some new neuroscience finding - but idealism is so very very deeply ingrained in our whole culture and institutions.

I agree with your critique of utilitarianism: it is difficult to motivate limiting the number of morally relevant people, which leads to the conclusion that you should probably sell all your property and give to charities, which is clearly unacceptable even to utilitarians.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

P.S.: Now I'm gonna delve into Aristotle, because the idea of a "limited duty", or of a duty "in moderation" still seems very interesting. Gonna update when there's something new

You'll find plenty of material! Virtue ethics is very popular in contemporary philosophy and there is a lot written.

I will say that I haven't gotten a satisfactory explanation from a virtue ethicist about what virtues are, why is being generous a virtue and being cruel not? I recently listened to an interview with Julia Annas, who seemed to think that this is simply obvious, which seems like you would just end up with whatever is accepted in your culture. Aristotle proposed to look at what virtuous people do, but that is a circular definition since you can't know who is virtuous without knowing what the virtues are. And it seems that Aristotle's own proposed virtues are not universal since he was writing specifically for Greek noblemen.

I'd at least listen in, but I'm in Europe and the time is bit too late. Just mentioning it in case there are enough others.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

And also a thought- where would be a good place to organize such meetings? I wasn't able to find a good solution for that.

Someone's backyard is the canonical location. But lots of cities also have public meeting buildings for groups as these.

I think finding a critical mass of people in a given location is a much larger issue than the logistics.

Quote from Cassius

It is a start anyway. Maybe the question is "what does a group of Epicureans getting together with each other do?

Some kind of pattern of activities combining a "lesson" or lecture with some kind of enjoyable activity (food)? Plus something that invites participation so people can get to know one another better.

Perhaps a similar structure as the podcast can be part of it, with reading and discussion? Sometimes from non-Epicurean writers in order to generate discussion.

Food is clearly traditional. Also a garden if weather permits.

I was a christian during much of my teens. At one point a woman told me that she had seen angels, and I believed her. I pressed her on what it was like and in the end she admitted it was not a "seeing" seeing as an experience on the sensory cortex but rather a feeling of someone being present, and, in one case, a sensation like someone putting a hand on her shoulder.

If you have a dualist worldview it might make sense that you can think of things like that as a kind of evidence, like seeing with the soul.

Also: after being told this, I wanted very badly to experience angels too. I can empathize with wanting this, perhaps to the extent that you tell others that you have done so in order to feel it by proxy if that makes sense. Like a teenager telling their peers that they have totally had sex/smoked weed/whatever.

A lot of words to say that I agree with your "immaturity" assessment.

Mental illnesses generally don't create visual hallucinations, mostly auditory ones.

It does not make sense to believe in miracles reported by others unless them lying or being deluded would be more miraculous than the miracle they are describing, to paraphrase Hume.

I stumbled across the podcast Your Undivided Attention about two years ago and I find it really put things in a new perspective re: social media. Highly recommended if you have a commute or similar podcast time.

I've also cut off social media except for a couple forums and feel a lot better and less anxious. I still have the behavior of reaching for my phone whenever there is a spare minute, but I've been getting better at asking myself, is there something else I'd rather do instead? I read a lot more books now.

Quote from Don

Quote from SimonC

if we accept that parameters of the thought experiment as given, that using the machine

The parameters don't seem so cut and dried. Here is Nozick's excerpt: https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil3160/Nozick1.pdf

I haven't had a chance to read the paper yet but am putting it here for reference.

I hadn't either, but I did now, so thank you.

I still get the impression that he intends to convey that the experiences in the experience machine would in fact be highly pleasurable from the point of view of the person in the machine. The reason you are expected to not want to go in the machine is that you would end up being deceived, and live a fake life.

A couple points relevant to the current discussion, from the later source, The Examined Life (1989):

Quote

The question is not whether to try the machine temporarily, but whether to enter it for the rest of your life

would seem to weaken the VR headset counterargument.

Quote

Notice that this is a thought experiment, designed to isolate one question: Do only our internal feelings matter to us? It would miss the point, then, to focus upon whether such a machine is technologically feasible.

one might of course insist that thought experiments that are counterfactual to physics are invalid (is this one? I can't tell), but the premise is clearly that the machine does exist.

Quote

Readers who hold they would plug in to the machine should notice whether their first impulse was not to do so, followed later by the thought that since only experiences could matter, the machine would be all right after all.

I can be an adherent to a particular philosophy yet not be practiced enough / have phronesis / be sage enough that my fist impulse is the correct one or the one I end up following. But is this really ethically relevant? This reads a bit like shaming people out of the machine.

Quote

Few of us really think that only a person’s experiences matter. We would not wish for our children a life of great satisfactions that all depended upon deceptions they would never detect: although they take pride in artistic accomplishments, the critics and their friends too are just pretending to admire their work yet snicker behind their backs; the apparently faithful mate carries on secret love affairs; their apparently loving children really detest them; and so on. Few of us upon hearing this description would exclaim, “What a wonderful life! It feels so happy and pleasurable from the inside.”

I was amused that Nozick did in fact use a similar cheating wife argument. I would say about the life described in the quote that it seems easier to say "what a pleasurable life!" than "what a happy life!". Provided of course that the person does in fact not detect the deceptions.

I would guess (but I do not know since I'm not well-read enough) that it is significant that Epicurus bases value on pleasure rather than happiness. Pleasure is a direct experience, it is not possible to be deceived about whether you are feeling pleasure. On the other hand happiness is a very difficult and hard to pin down concept. Apparently Aristotle thought you could become unhappy even after your death if for example all your children die after you died.

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Of course we wish people to have many such moments and days of happiness.... Yet it is not clear that we want those moments constantly or want our lives to consist wholly and only of them. We want to experience other feelings too, ones with valuable aspects that happiness does not possess as strongly. And even the very feelings of happiness may want to direct themselves into other activities, such as helping others or artistic work, which then involve the predominance of different feelings. We want experiences, fitting ones, of profound connection with others, of deep understanding of natural phenomena, of love, of being profoundly moved by music or tragedy, or doing something new and innovative, experiences very different from the bounce and rosiness of the happy moments. What we want, in short, is a life and a self that happiness is a fitting response to—and then to give it that response.

And would not the above quote seem rather silly if we replace "happiness" with "pleasure"? I read the above as saying that the problem with happiness is that it is only part of a pleasurable life. Which is probably true, but it is not an argument against pleasure as being the basis of value.

e: do tell me if I'm wildly off base here, this is something I've been thinking about for a bit so I wanted to jump into the discussion.

I discussed this with my wife the other day. She said she would not use the experience machine because it would not be "real" which I think is a common viewpoint. I asked her if a person who believe that they are in a happy marriage but in fact are being cheated on is happy or not, and she agreed that such a person would in fact be happy. So it seems that the "reality" of the pleasure is not consistently taken into account in some peoples valuation.

My opinion on the experience machine is that if we accept that parameters of the thought experiment as given, that using the machine will IN FACT be more pleasurable than not doing so, an Epicurean should always use the machine.

@smoothiekiwi your argument seems to be "but it wouldn't be pleasurable because A, B, C" which is avoiding the thought experiment which states that using the machine is IN FACT more pleasurable than not doing so.

I think the thought experiment boils down to "have you considered that hedonism.... is HEDONISM????" and relying on the other person to react "eww, hedonism". It is not a problem for a committed hedonist.

Other points of the experiment might be "most people living today are not committed hedonists", or "ascetics might judge hedonists severely", none of which are news.

Further there is empirical evidence against Nozick at this time since VR headsets now exist and are being used by people. Most people who use VR headsets would not think "but the things in the game are not REAL" or "you could do other things with your time" are valid arguments against using them. They use the headsets because they like it and that is all the justification needed.

Thank you.

I'm a layperson who got interested in philosophy a couple years ago. I took an e-course in philosophy in 2020 and got the distinct impression that the emperor was not wearing any clothes - in particular I still don't understand why anyone was ever impressed by Kant. I appreciate that I barely scratched the surface on this one, but that is still the impression I got.

I did get an appreciation of Epicurus, Hume, and Nietzsche (though the course material was somewhat dismissive of them), and have been doing my own reading since.

As far as Epicurus, I've read Lucretius. I've got DeWitt on my ereader but haven't started it yet.

I found this site through a web search looking for reading material. I registered an account because the common-sense interpretation of pleasure as opposed to bread-and-water ataraxia made sense to me, and in order to learn more.