Posts by TauPhi

I should be there as well.

Few things that crossed my mind:

1. The concept of free will is a crucial part of Epicurean Ethics. Swerving atoms and the consequence of this phenomenon should be included in the steps.

2. Maybe it would be beneficial to name the concepts where applicable when describing ethical ideas (things like: atomism, hedonism, hedonistic calculus, egoism etc.)

3. I agree with Don that points 5 & 6 are closely linked together.

Quote from Kalosyni

And perhaps for modern day Epicureans this would also include studying climate change so as to understand the rate in which climate is changing (for the sake of understanding safety).

4. I'd personally drop the idea of mentioning climate change in the steps because:

- it has never been a part of Epicurus teachings

- it's politically charged topic which will most likely distract audience from the study of ethics

- the study of climate change is by all means desirable but so is anything else that falls into natural science category

- and lastly, to our knowledge Earth's climate changes permanently and periodically over the course of billions of years so whether we like it or not, we as species are definitely not safe on this planet and sooner or later our home will be home no more (at least for several thousands years until climate changes favourably once again)

[Yes, I'm avoiding the issue of human impact on climate on purpose so please refrain yourself from making emotional comments below and let's all stick to philosophy ;)]

I've been recently going through my stuff from the past due to a move and I came across my diploma paper based on Oscar Wilde's plays and it occurred to me that Mr. Wilde could have found Epicurean ideas very attractive. I don't know if he was familiar with Epicurus as I definitely wasn't almost 20 years ago so I never paid any attention to this side of Oscar Wilde's writings but I might investigate this in the future.

Anyway, it's just a random thought that popped into my head the other day. And for those who have never read Oscar Wilde, give it a go. You won't regret it.

Quote from Cassius

And yet our bodies and our bones exist for a while, and our atoms never go away.

I strongly disagree with this statement. It's not our bodies, our bones nor our atoms. 'Our' ceases to exist the moment we die. Our death is nothing to us because we can't experience it.

When you say:

Quote from Cassius

We can see "dead bodies" in front of us for quite a while. The body that was a few minutes ago animated and alive is still mostly there, it's the consciousness that is gone.

you're talking about death of somebody/something else. We can experience death this way because we're not dead ourselves. PD02 is clearly about OUR death not the concept of death in general. Maybe it would be a good idea to leave a footnote for PD02 making it clear that it's about OUR death.

Quote from Don

Oh, I wouldn't introduce "afterlife."

Death is the way to translate that. If you want "the state of 'being' dead" but we have no "being" after we die .

Death IS literally nothing for us.

We do not exist.

We are not.

There is nothing for us.

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I'm 100% percent with Don on this one.

Quote from Don

the katastematic pleasure is the preferred background condition of being. Kinetic pleasure is the moment by moment awareness of individual pleasures. Katastematic pleasure is the calm ocean, kinetic pleasures are the waves.

Don This metaphor of yours is pretty similar in essence to how I understand katastemic pleasure. My understanding is probably not even close to what Epicurus had in mind, but I kind of like it. Especially, because I came up with my metaphor thanks to one of my favourite dreams from the past. Anyway, here it is (the metaphor for katastemic pleasure, not the dream).

I like to imagine myself as a lonely child in a deep forest for the first time. Inexperienced, ignorant and scared of my present surroundings. The forest is full of ghosts, screams and shadows. Everything seems hostile to me. Everything wants to hurt me. So I crouch up trembling next to the closest tree, praying for my life. And it seems to work. I'm still alive. And I eventually stop praying and I'm still alive. So I get up and get the courage to open my eyes and look around. I forgot for a moment that I'm scared and I start to investigate my surroundings. Enough time passes and I know now that the ghosts and shadows are caused by the sun and leaves. They are quite beautiful, in fact. Screams don't come from human flesh hungry beasts but animals living peacefully in the forest. I know the forest. I understand it. And one day when I'm comfortable and confident enough I close my eyes, spread my arms, smile and inhale in awe my beautiful forest. And from now on nothing is going to take that feeling of connection, harmony, inner peace and joy from me until I die. I know how to sustain that feeling because I know and understand enough.

This is how I imagine katastemic pleasure and the ideal progress in life. It's quite close to ataraxia, I guess. As you said Don, katastemic pleasure is ever present background and it's there for grabs if one puts enough effort to understand how to get it. Kinetic pleasures are all the little things in between. In my metaphor, these are trees, leaves, sun and animals. They are temporary excitations that bring variety to life. And maybe I'm wrong imagining it this way but even then, it's a pleasant thought.

Godfrey Thanks for your post #27. I loved it and it's hard not to agree with you but I'd like to comment on this sentence:

Quote from Godfrey

Neurochemistry is the mechanism of pleasure but, to my way of thinking, doesn't supercede pleasure.

When we talk about neurochemistry, we venture into the world of molecules and atoms. To me, atoms will always have precedence over everything. This is how I understand objective way of looking at things. Trying to understand objective truth about our existence gives us a chance for subjective, pleasant life as humans because objective knowledge removes subjective fears and destroys subjective superstitions. When I was talking about dopamine I didn't mean to suggest that it replaces pleasure. By saying that pleasure might not be the highest good I was coming from objective perspective. Objectively atoms and void are the highest good as they are building blocks of everything else.

That said, I'm not sitting now in front of the screen thinking 'a combination of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen was just released by my neurons therefore I am capable of doing x and y'. I'm not a Spock. I'm purely human and from my subjective, human perspective I do find pleasure the ultimate motivator. I also fully realise that philosophy is a discipline invented by humans and is intended to be practiced from human perspective. I'm perfectly capable of thinking, talking and experiencing pleasure, feelings, friendship and everything else human but I try to remind myself that I live in the universe that is not created for me and all my subjective experiences most likely have objective truth behind them.

I'll approach katastematic/kinetic pleasure from slightly different perspective. This is something I was entertaining myself with on one of my midnight walks. One day I was reading something about dopamine and its function as a neurotransmitter and it occurred to me that pleasure might not be the highest good, in fact. Technically, pleasure may be just an emergent phenomenon caused by release of dopamine in animals' brains. Dopamine makes us want to pursue (or avoid) things. Without it, we wouldn't be even talking about pleasure and pain. We simply wouldn't know what these are.

To illustrate the power of dopamine, imagine yourself in front of a tasty looking burger. Next to the burger there are two pills. Let's make them red and blue for dramatic, Matrix-like purposes. Blue pill contains a chemical that completely blocks dopamine release in the brain. Swallow the pill and you would be staring at the burger until you die of hunger. You would have no motivation to eat it. You would not know what pleasure is. The red pill is cocaine-like chemical. Swallow it and you would find yourself devouring the burger is a state of ecstasy due to dopamine release flood. That would be the most pleasant burger in your life.

My point is, katastematic pleasure is a healthy, constant release of dopamine in our brains which allows us to feel pleasure anytime we're not in pain. This, to me, is the actual state of ataraxia. Enough dopamine to experience the pleasure of existence and to evoke the will to sustain that existence for as long as it's pleasurable.

Kinetic pleasure is a temporary spike of dopamine that makes us pursue imminent but short-lasting pleasures. I also consider it the main source of variety in experiencing pleasures discussed in PD18.

Count me in as well.

This post may be slightly off topic but all the talk about Latin pronunciation and Ranieri's work made me write this entry. It probably will only be useful for people considering learning Latin. I started with the intent of being able to read 'De Rerum Natura' in its original form one day. I didn't go far as yet but here's something to get people started if they are in similar position to mine.

Quote from Don

If you're interested at all in Latin and Ancient Greek, I **highly** recommend Ranieri's YouTube channels Scorpio Martianus and PolyMathy (and now there's a PolyMathy+).

I completely agree with that recommendation. I'll just add that Ranieri's video on book 'Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata' convinced me to go with it as my main study book and I have no regrets. It's quite brilliant.

Another YouTube channel I find very helpful is called: latintutorial

Quote from Don

Personally, I prefer the Restored Classical pronunciation.

I also agree with the choice of pronunciation. That's the main reason I decided to write this post. I've created few pages long all-I-need-to-know about Classical Latin Pronunciation guide for myself. It's a complication of stuff I found online and stuff from several grammar books presented in a form digestible to me. I never had intention of sharing it but I decided it may be of use to some of you here. Feel free to use it and I hope you find it helpful.

classical_latin_pronunciation.pdf

Quote from Godfrey

Also understand that duty is subservient to pleasure, not the other way around. This may be the most difficult as well as the most important.

Godfrey This has to be one of my favourite passages I came across here since I've joined the forum. In the Western World we're all collectively spoon-fed the importance of duty pretty much since day one. Breaking this indoctrination in favour of pleasure would take a gargantuan effort. Personally, I'd probably need an imaginary friend the likes of Tyler Durden from 'Fight Club' if I truly wanted to succeed.

Anyway, if I'm ever in charge of preparing 25th century anniversary album of Principal Doctrines, I'm putting your thought on second LP with outtakes and I'm making it the single to promote the whole thing. I really enjoyed that thought. Thanks for sharing.

Having definitive proof of extraterrestrial life would change our perspective on how we see the Universe and our place in it. Waking up one day from dead universe into alive universe would be yet another nail in the coffin of religions which build their business model on human desire to be special.

We know very little about the Universe but we already have some understanding of how big it is how some of its laws work. Now, imagine a situation that there's a civilisation out there advanced enough to conquer the vastness of space and break out from the iron fist rule of time just to travel to Earth to crash their spaceship here or, worse, to get randomly captured by species that can barely get their feet off the ground. That idea, to me, is laughable at best.

For that reason I put publications like the one above in my mental library in the same section I store religious publications. I named that section 'Delusions and Wishful Thinking'.

Quote from Cassius

So yes Greg Sadler's article is a good list of sources - I just don't recommend you follow him too closely on his views on Stoicism.

I've already did my research on Stoicism in the past and I can confidently say it's not for me. I don't regret doing the research, though. And even if Greg Sadler were the incarnation of Lucifer himself, I'd still recommend his article as he did a great job there.

On topic of which book to read first, I found this article by Gregory Sadler and I think it can be very beneficial for anyone looking for Epicurean reading list to start their study of the philosophy. Mr Sadler not only gives comprehensive list of ancient texts but also explains what these texts contain in regard to Epicurean philosophy.

Epicureanism Reading Recommendations

what books and authors are key for studying this classical philosophical school?

medium.com

Don I really like your last idea about the Cyrenaics. Epicurus could, indeed, be addressing them in this passage. Your post got me wondering if I could come up with something that simultaneously captures most of the arguments and translations in this thread:

• the Cyrenaics who trapped themselves in a nightmare of a limitless pursuit due to their failure of capturing the substance of pleasure

• Peter Saint-Andre's 'the enjoyment of sleep'

• @Elli's 'those in the enjoyment (that lie out of limits)' - which I personally agree with

• Pamela Mensch's 'the self-indulgent' - which I personally find the simplest and best translation

• multiple translations of 'sensuality'

• Don's latest attempt of 'those who are lying in sensual delight'

My proposition is rather more poetic than literal translation; more in the style of Lucretius than Epicurus and purely for entertainment purposes.

Here it is: 'those who are sleepwalking in boundless, sensual indulgence'.

What other schools of philosophy are close to your heart? Which schools you find worth studying in detail?

Quote from Cassius

Kalsoyni asked me about that and every other translation I can find (Bailey, Hicks, Yonge, Epicurus Wiki) focuses on prodigal and sensuality.

There's a new translation of 'Lives of the Eminent Philosophers' by Pamela Mensch which was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. I find her translation of the fragment in question much more on point then all the 'sensuality' attempts or 'the enjoyment of sleep' one.

[...] But when we say that pleasure is our goal, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the self-indulgent, as the ignorant think, or those who disagree with or misinterpret our views. [...] (page 535)

I don't know any Greek so I can't add much to the argument but taking into consideration context of the whole paragraph of the letter, 'the enjoyment of sleep' translation makes as much sense to me as 'the enjoyment of collecting snails by the river on Sunday afternoon'.

Quote from ThinkingCat

“what does it mean to you personally to be epicurean in 30 words or less?”

To be wise enough to know what I need and strong enough to avoid the rest. To live pleasurably among people I love and be pleasant to live with.

Quote from ThinkingCat

Wow, these responses are very inspiring, a treasure trove! I’m off to read dewitt!

After introductory text like DeWitt's book I highly recommend going to the source material which Eikadistes listed above. This way you'll have general idea what's what and your own, unfiltered exposure to Epicurean texts. And if you find yourself liking all that, there's plenty more to enjoy later on. Have fun.

Quote from Cassius

And that's a vastly different approach to which many who come looking for help in "gaining control" to be worse than their current situation.

I'm not an expert on Stoicism so I may have it completely wrong but aren't you a bit harsh here? I don't think Stoics wanted to gain control over things out of control. They rather focused on how to deal best (in their understanding of the word) with things in control and not to care too much about things out of control.

Trying to gain control over things out of control would make Stoics look like Don Quixote fighting the windmills. They were already busy enough fighting vices so I doubt they had time for windmills as well.

I haven't used Git much but based on my limited knowledge of it I think it can be a great tool for collaboration. As far as Jupyter is concerned, it wouldn't be my first choice. Not that I have anything against it (I don't know it at all) but I think markdown would be far better to work with for these reasons:

• simplicity - markdown is basically plain text so it's super easy to work with and integration with Git version control would be easier as well

• versatility - markdown files can be edited on any platform using any editor so collaborators are not tied down to one, single option

Regarding Git server, I'd choose something like GitLab over GitHub. This is solely based on my aversion to software corporations (and GitHub belongs to Microsoft as far as I'm aware). I'm sure GitHub is fine but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try to convince people to use alternatives.

Quote from Cassius

Well that list shows how hard core you really are, and far advanced ahead of me.

I have heard of most of those and occasionally tried them, but I still use mostly GUI - based programs on an XFCE desktop.

I'm not really that hard core. I just try to use programs which best allow me to achieve what I want. There are areas where I would never use terminal based programs as that would make my life unnecessarily complicated, i.e. all graphics related tasks, web browsing etc.