Posts by Julia

Quote from Don

then roared back onto the backs of cars in the 1970s

Seems to me like it also started showing up on some Western European storefronts.

Quote from Don

That said, I do have a small plastic piglet on my desk at work

That's cute 😁

Quote from Don

Two stylized Ps back to back = Pleasure and Pain

That only works in English, so I don't think it would be a very good idea. Greek and Latin are languages too, of course, but they hold a different status, in my opinion. (As do proper Names, like Epicurus, Ἐπίκουρος.)

Quote from Cassius

agreed and I hadn't noticed that myself. But I am not sure there is much variation in the appearance of pigs(?)

They can be newborn, piglet, or adult. Boar or sow. Boars might show tusks. Sows might be pregnant or have visible teats. Position could be lying, wallowing, standing, or leaping. Could be furry or bare skinned, and fat, lean, or medium. So…there is /some/ variation, but of course they'll still be pigs 🤷‍♀️

But regarding the leaping piglet, I'm not convinced mammals can be stylised like a fish? There's Picasso's bull sketch (Le Taureau), but I'm quite certain that if didn't have his name attached, it would be considered utterly unremarkable. Plus, for a symbol, there's no symmetry or anything in it -- unlike the Christianist's stylised fish, which is quite geometric as a shape. A pigs face would be an easier, more symmetrical shape overall.

I think it is interesting there never was a symbol other than the bust, which I'm sure not just anyone could afford to own or put on display.

Quote from Don

I love the pig woodcut design as artwork. Epicurus' bust is great as artwork.

But you have to hand it to the major religions for having easy to spot, easy to draw symbols:

☦️☪️☯️☸️🔯🕉️✡️✝️🪯

That's what we're looking for.

I agree.

Quote from Don

Getting people to agree and use it, that's a whole other kettle of fish.

This seems to imply getting agreement before actual usage, and I don't think that's how it works. Symbols like these are adopted and used without asking for universal agreement, let alone permission, and they either make it or they don't. As such, the process is an evolutionary trial & error cycle through the court of public opinion, until something just happens to be found that clicks with enough of a majority to catch on. So the trick, in my opinion, is not to make the entire world agree. It should be enough if we can come to reasonable level of agreement amongst each other, and then just try and see what happens.

Quote from Don

There are things like the leaping piglet silhouette, Eikadistes ' 20er moon, graphic representations of the Epicurus bust, etc. But for sheer basic graphic symbols, ya gotta hand it to the cross, crescent, Star of David, et al.

I agree. I think it should ideally be a very simple geometric shape, and if it is to be based on letters, I think it should be stylised (like the tau-phi mashup, like ℅, @, &, 𝄞, etc). So, for example, I like the shape of the 20er moon, but I think the four letters "20er" spelled out are already too much writing to make for a good logo / symbol / …

Quote from Eikadistes

I do like the idea of a symbol reflecting the Hegemon, himself, in the spirit of consistency with the ancient tradition. This is what I came up with a while ago to place focus back on The Man:

I agree that having some continuity would be good. But I wonder, pragmatically: How would you turn that stylized E into, for example, a necklace pendant? The lower half would have to be connected somehow.

Quote from Wikipedia

"Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for Coptic and Nobiin."

"After the establishment of the canonical Ionian (Euclidean) Greek alphabet, new glyph variants for Ε were introduced through handwriting. In the uncial script (used for literary papyrus manuscripts in late antiquity and then in early medieval vellum codices), the "lunate" shape (ϵ) became predominant."

This variant of the Epsilon is quite symmetrical, and moon-shaped ("lunate"), alluding to the 20th / moon-based calendar. It can be modified with an "atom" dot (like this Ė character) which – to my limited knowledge – would make it quite unique. I didn't mean for it to be off to one side / asymmetrical, I just didn't know off the top of my head how to get it right in the middle using only Unicode.

Lunate Epsilon: ϵ (Unicode U+03F5)
Combining Dot Above: ̇ (Unicode U+0307)
Result: ϵ̇

I don't actually know that I would prefer that over the ⟐ symbol. The most visually pleasing icons, in my opinion, are symmetrical (left-right, up-down, both, in diagonals, …), which makes any E variant tricky.

I think, my overall favourite so far would be a rhombus ◊ (instead of an equal-angle diamond ◇), with a dot in the middle. Any thoughts on that?

Quote from Don

To repeat and expand on michelepinto 's and others' proposals:

• The four sides = The four lines of the Tetrapharmakos
• The dot = the atom (or whatever basic building block of matter you want in modern terms)
  • The space around the dot represents the void.
• The points at the top (a triangle pointing up) and bottom (a triangle pointing down) of the diamond shape represent pain and pleasure.
  • Additionally, the points represent the choices we make based on pain and pleasure. Which way will we decide to go? It's up to us!
• The symbol is an abstract eye to represent the motto SIc fac omnia tamquam spectet Epicurus. You could even include the letters SFOTSE in some arrangements around or inside the diamond.
• The diamond shape with dot is an abstract representation of a walled Garden with a group of people inside.
  • For those Epicureans who want to emphasize lathe biosas it can represent that but doesn't need to.
• The two sides of the diamond represent two people facing each other with outstretched arms < > joining hands in friendship.
• The diamond itself represents the most durable natural physical substance which stands for the unshakable enduring trust in the Canon and the physical nature of the Cosmos with no supernatural intervention.

I'm blue-skying here but just wanted to provide in how many directions you can go with a simple figure. I agree with Cassius that the most traditional "symbol" was the bust of Epicurus but that's hard to capture graphically (unless someone is up for a challenge).

I very much miss having a universally agreed upon symbol for Epicurean philosophy, and I quite like the many ways in which this can be interpreted.

One practical problem is, of course, having actual space between the four sides and the dot in a real-world pendant like a necklace, but I think an diamond-shaped piece of gold/silver (ideally with raised edges) with a stone set in the middle should do fine?

What would we call this symbol?

Quote from Kalosyni

You might look onto "Compassionate Communication" (NVC) by Marshall Rosenberg:

Mm, this is still at cross purposes: In general, when faced with a task one doesn't like doing, one can either use willpower and try to "just power through", but the kind of willpower available to "just force oneself" is a very limited resource. The other option is to speak to oneself compassionately, more akin to talking to child ("I know this sucks, but once it's done, this and that will be really good, and I'll can even reward myself with something or other"), and this is typically much more sustainable. My problem arises when neither of those are happening, and I'm either outright not thinking at all or am, by force of pre-conscious habit, shoving aside whichever faint notion of consequences might have bubbled up for a split-second; I tried to express this in a number of ways above: trance, autopilot, not thinking, mindless, sleepwalk, unaware, ….

That's why I've been looking for a question which forces me to bring to the forefront of the conscious mind the predicted consequences of my actions: "Name what about this will bring satisfaction/relief?"

Quote from Godfrey

VS71. Ask this question of every desire: what will happen to me if the object of desire is achieved, and what if not?

Thank you so much for pointing out that connection!

I'm glad it says "every desire" – not "a desire" or "your desires". There's no debating what "every" means. I'm also glad it asks to name or describe the consequence ("what will happen"), so one cannot fall into the habit of nodding it off with a mindless automatic ever-same "Yes", as would be all too possible with a closed Yes/No question. I shall pay heed to that it is phrased generically, that it isn't narrowed to any particular (set of) pleasure and pain, and try habituating myself to a more openly phrased "What will happen?" instead. Let's see how that goes

Thank y'all for bearing with me, I do appreciate it

Quote from Godfrey

So in this way selecting isn't either/or, it's actually choice and avoidance. In selecting one thing, you reject another, and vice versa. This relates to the idea that there's no neutral state

However, extending the "no neutral state" analogy once more, then every single point in time one is never honoring both sides of the same coin with perfectly equal strength. For example, even though they both exist on a continuum, "working against the risk of getting fired" is Avoidance, because one conceives of it as actively moving away from something, whereas "pursuing a promotion" is Choice, because one conceives of it as actively moving towards something. If I try, in my mind, to conceive of an action as being perfectly equally both αἵρεσις (hairesis, Choice) and φεύγω (pheugo, Avoidance), I fail. I always gravitate to one or the other reference point as my anchor: either the reference/anchor is where I want to be, or the reference/anchor is where I do not want to be, but it is never equally both. Not in my mind, anyways

Quote from Kalosyni

In this example, you eating the ice cream is "doing" and so by default that is a "choice" that you made.

It is not an upper-case Epicurean Choice, because it is quite obvious to me that, all things considered, this would cause way more pain than pleasure. I'm only talking about upper-case Epicurean Choice (and upper-case Epicurean Avoidance), not the lower-case casual choice or lower-case casual avoidance.

Quote from Godfrey

For example, a bowl of ice cream at 9 in the morning might bring an excess of pain over pleasure.

Because it was just a lower-case casual choice, it doesn't bring satisfaction, it brings regret, so the suggested Choice/Avoidance-test of "Can you name the expected satisfaction/relief that'll come from this?" would have failed, because the answer would have been "No, I'm gonna regret this…"

Quote from Kalosyni

There is a reason behind the action - possibly the desire for "entertainment" (novelty) or a desire to remove anxiety (through distraction).

Virtually all the ridiculous things I do are due to procrastination, which I have the conscious and emotional tools to bisect and deliberately counteract. However, I have to pause for a second and really be deliberate about it ("Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight." – Rollo May). Because of how things are, I need to artificially create an interruption to have a pause for thought (→ countdown timer), and I also need to force myself to use it, not just nod off whatever I was doing (→ write it down).

I don't pencil into my planner "9am: eat box of ice cream". The act of writing it down is what ensures I'm mentally present enough to not do dumb stuff — but living by the commands of my planner, having to write everything down, that is itself (well worth it, but also) a pain. Having a generic, universal question to check up on myself would be a great assistance, especially when I'm away from my timer/planner desk. I could ask "Will I regret this?" but that has the down-side of being negatively framed, of not doubling as a motivator. When I ask "Will this bring satisfaction/relief?" it is too easy to just answer "Yes" to everything, so it wouldn't be effective. Only when I ask "Name the satisfaction/relief this will bring" am I forced to actually think about the consequences, and because they're positively framed, it also motivates me to follow through: "I'll have a clean mirror, and I love that" makes it easy to just do it real quick.

So all I wonder about is if anyone can come up with an upper-case Epicurean Choice (or Avoidance) where one would be unable to name/describe beforehand the satisfaction (or relief) this action will bring…

Quote from Godfrey

For me, the immediate pleasure of choosing is that of agency.

Yes, but this regards the mental operation of Choice/Avoidance itself, whereas…

Quote from Godfrey

And this can build upon itself with tiny successes such as choosing to take a break, then taking it when the time comes.

…whatever you Choose or Avoid will bring satisfaction and/or relief, won't it? Seems to me that

• Choice: to do something for satisfaction and other pleasures
• Avoidance: to do something for relief and other pleasures

are indeed valid definitions.

Quote from Cassius

would you ever be able to get anything done if you were trying to actually live this way?

I already am living this way as best I can. The reason is that as soon as I stop doing this I end up living similar to what Rand describes here:

Quote from Ayn Rand

Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness. The act of focusing one's consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality—or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make.

My days work like this:

I decide on something (Choice/Avoidance), write it down, set a timer (5-60 minutes), and start doing what I decided upon. Once the time is up, I do that same thing again (which might result in simply continuing what I was doing). Without the timer, I get distracted with something different entirely, or lose myself in a pointless detail, so it acts as a fail-safe (worst case I lose 59 minutes). Without having to write down my Choice/Avoidance result, I lie to myself, and pretend that eating a box of ice cream was my Choice, even though it's 9am, I'm not hungry, and know full well I'll only regret it before I'm even half done. Or I'll lie to myself, saying that my Choice is to now research window wiping techniques on Youtube for three hours (which I'll only regret), instead of just cleaning my bathroom mirror (which would have brought me satisfaction plus other pleasures).

I'm not writing an article, I am trying to get my head straight and relearn how to function properly as an adult human. The point is not to turn myself into a robot, either. For example, I often write down: "Take a break" and set the timer to 30 minutes. The point is to stop sleepwalking through my life, drifting from one Pavlovian conditioning or object-action association to another, like some kind of zombie seeking immediate gratification, which in the vast majority of time ends with me doing things that I regret as soon as I dare to think about them -- such as wasting countless hours on nonsense, eating because I'm bored (instead of because I'm hungry), or doing something that doesn't need doing simply because the object caught my eye's attention ("Oh look, the vacuum cleaner. Haven't used that in a while!"). Most things worth doing require some level of delayed gratification (putting in a little work to make a pizza from scratch; actually cleaning the mirror), and most things that offer immediate gratification aren't worth doing (calling for delivery; the dopamine release of watching a mind-numbing infomercial).

I'm dotting my I's and crossing my T's for purely personal reasons, to make sure I'm not somehow breaking the Choice/Avoidance by checking for "What's the expected satisfaction/relief that'll come from this?"

Quote from Eikadistes

I think that the pleasure that is having choice can be properly called freedom.

In that sense, the pleasure of having freedom is different from the pleasures had from doing things while free. In that regard, I might argue, then, that freedom is a katestamatic pleasure.

I very much agree. My problem is, that I have the pleasure of a lot of freedom (but I won't have that forever, so it pains me to not be using it), and instead of using it to my advantage, I waste it with things I regret, because I simply don't think and am not deliberate in my actions. I'm technically conscious and aware, but I'm also…not. It's a very odd thing, that happens due to a virtually complete lack of outside interruption, outside demands, external structure. How would you keep yourself from wasting your time on immediate gratifications, if there were zero demands? There is no boss, no people, no pets, no deadline, no nothing. I suppose a lot of people fall into a slumber when they retire for that very reason, and unless they can find something external to structure their days, it'll be a tough nut to crack. I haven't retired, and there's no fishin' buddies to hang out with, either, so I need to keep myself on track, and this is how I do it:

By anchoring myself around a timer and a daily planner, and asking: "Will this bring either satisfaction or relief?"

I'm sorry, I was somewhat ambiguous as to how I mean my question(s); please allow me to clarify:

I don't try to control everything; I try to not mindlessly go about my days doing random things which I'll only regret. In that process, I'm often stuck in that middle-ground of dioko/kleros: Despite not having anything better to do, merely wishing my bathroom mirror was clean (dioko), instead of consciously deciding to clean it and committing to that decision (Choice), and instead I sleepwalk to the kitchen, get a snack despite not being hungry or go back to staring at the ceiling or doing something else that's at best useless, at worst self-sabotaging.

This is why I am so keen at finding something to habitually check for. Such as "name the satisfaction/relief that will come from this" and if I cannot do so, I see that I didn't actually do proper Choice/Avoidance.

This is why I wonder if there is a case where proper Choice/Avoidance has been done but there's still no anticipated (in the lower-case casual sense of anticipation) satisfaction/relief to come from the current action. It's really not that deep, and very pragmatic hands-on. I just want to make sure I'm not missing an edge-case or something, because I certainly cannot think of any Choice without foreseeable satisfaction (among other pleasures), nor can I think of any Avoidance without foreseeable relief (among other pleasures). Because the other pleasures are variable, simply checking for "What's the satisfaction/relief that'll come from this" is a dumbed-down, fool-proof, simple yet effective a "Did I really do Choice/Avoidance, or am I fooling myself, or in an autopilot trance?"-test as I could come up with.

Quote from Cassius

to suggest to someone that exercising choice is going to produce immediate pleasurable "stimulation" in the sense of eating candy

That's not quite the way I meant it. More like: Exercising Choice is going to produce an immediate pleasure because 1. the pain of being in a state of indecision ends and 2. the pain of being in a state of lack-of-agency, a state of letting life happen to oneself instead of taking control (in so far as is possible) ends (that 2nd point is what differentiates Choice from dioko in the sense laid out in post #27).

Quote from Cassius

Probably not directly on point but also relevant to this is the vatican saying -- Necessity is an EVIL, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity.

To me, that's a statement that the ability to choose and avoid is a good, which means it is a pleasure.

To me, this is the rejection of fatalism, the rejection of preordained fate; I agree with it, but that alone doesn't necessarily make me take charge of my life (which is an unhealthy behaviour on my part), nor does it help me assess or continually check for whether or not I have truly made a Choice or Avoidance (rather than living through my day in a sleepwalky autopilot trance, largely devoid of deliberate action).

I aimed more at where Kalosyni is going:

Quote from Kalosyni

"For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present;"

So this would be about a kind of satisfaction because of the agreeableness of the present moment. And it seems like it would be a kind of a feeling of flow, not striving over things, not worry or ruminating, because one's "house" (life) is set up properly and in order.

Yes, and this is the compounding result of lots of Choice and Avoidance (plus following through on it). Sort of like: I chose to wipe my bathroom mirror. I don't like doing it, but I know the result will be satisfying. I can assess that I have indeed made a Choice if I can name what will bring me satisfaction in the future and am able to visualise it or "bring it into the present" as I said above.

I very much like the line "the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness" because for the present to be able to be my own implies that I have taken charge of my own life in the past (Choice/Avoidance plus following through) instead of letting it happen at me (dioko/kleros).

To rephrase it all: "When there is no anticipated satisfaction nor an anticipated relief, which I could specifically name, I cannot possibly have completed the Choice or Avoidance operation in my mind yet."

Would you agree that this rephrased statement is correct?

(Of course, after having Chosen / decided to Avoid something, I also need to follow through; that's not what I am wondering about, though. I'm specifically looking at what happens beforehand.)

Dear friends

a while ago, I wrote about the guidance of satisfaction (post #4), and how it helps me avoid the loss of deliberate action and purposeful agency characteristic of kleros (κλῆρος) and dioko (διώκω) (post #11, and post #27), which I consider to be the passive versions of Choice (conquer/master/capture) and Avoidance (flee/set free), which are both active and deliberate. Currently, I wonder:

Assuming my hedonic calculator made no mistake, and further assuming that no unforeseen event (weather, other people, human error on my part, …) prevents me from succeeding with what I had set out to do: is it safe to say that every Choice is followed by satisfaction (in addition to other pleasures) and every Avoidance is followed by relief (in addition to other pleasures)?

Please note that I am not arguing that satisfaction and relief could replace Pleasure as the guide to life. I am asking: Can one have made a Choice despite not having any satisfaction to look forward to? Can one have decided on an Avoidance without having any relief to look forward to? Thus, is the concrete anticipation (lower-case "anticipation" in the non-Epicurean casual sense of the word) of satisfaction / relief a reliable indicator that a successful Choice / Avoidance decision has been made?

And finally: When I commit (using "commitment" in the sense of non-flakiness, not in the sense of duty; further details see here in posts #29 & #30) to a Choice, that mental operation in itself brings about a pleasurable "Let's do this!"-type energy which would not be present with mere uncommitted, remaining-passive dioko. What is the name of this pleasure? What is the name of the pleasure of Choice itself? It also exists with Avoidance as opposed to kleros: There is a rousing, electric pleasure associated with saying "I will take no more, I will now defend myself against this pain!" Does this have a name? Do we have a (modern or ancient) word for this?

In case you wonder why any of this matters: I think it's very important to note that the act of making a Choice / Avoidance decision is itself a pleasure, because that immediate gratification conditions the brain towards making Choices / Avoidances in the first place. More importantly, when (re-)learning proper Choice / Avoidance, it seems to me to be a useful test to ask oneself "Am I looking forward to satisfaction / relief?" because if not, the Choice / Avoidance procedure was faulty or incomplete. I am still making a lot of half-hearted would-be Choices / Avoidances, and keep ending up in the pain of dioko / kleros passivity and all its consequences, and it is through mentally bringing into the present the anticipated satisfaction / relief that I am learning to fix that: Either I cannot yet readily bring any satisfaction / relief to mind, which means my Choice / Avoidance was too vague; or I am still unconscious of the foreseeable satisfaction / relief, which means my commitment is lacking and I'm probably in dioko / kleros. My underlying question being: "Is that just me, or is this a general principle?" If it were a general principle, I imagine it would be useful to other newcomers to the Garden, especially those who are pained by a lack of activity overall or a lack of deliberate activity

Thank you

Seeing how I focused on adulthood in my main post above, I would like to link to an article which – albeit not written through an Epicurean lens – does give a good first overview of the serious damage done to children and adolescents by exposing them to social media. While "[t]here are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young" (Thomas Sowell), willfully, purposefully and actively harming them is certainly one of those things, and the 2021 Facebook leak documents precisely that.

Written article: The Great Rewiring of Childhood: A Smartphone-Social Media Dystopia, by Academy of Ideas (AOI), released 2025-01-23.

Same text, narrated version:

Quote from Eikadistes

Very true. Neither group tolerated supernatural propositions.

I think that Charvaka philosophers viewed the "religious experience" itself as a delusion and prayer as totally ineffective, whereas Epicureans saw the experience (as he describes early humans encountering inspiring visions in dream-states) as natural (as he did prayer), and of psychological value. I think the Charvaka opinion is a bit more like modern atheists.

Well, I guess that's one of the key points: they were atheists.

Thank you! That is very helpful

Quote from Eikadistes

Theologically, the Epicureans endorsed the existence of deities, whereas the Indian materialists saw them as being pure fictions of misinformed, human imaginations.

Well…we have to take into account the dangers of "heresy" at the time, and also consider the complete re-definition of the word "gods" by Epicureans. When it comes down to it, don't Epicureans and Charvaka both think about the same of supernatural gods, gods in the sense of Zeus and Ganesh? I suppose that Charvaka rejected them more absolutely, whereas Epicurean philosophy remains open to the psychological/social usefulness of symbols and rituals?

Quote from Eikadistes

One of the biggest differences we notes between the Epicurean Tradition and ancient Indian materialism is the tone: Epicurus recommended that we treat our neighbors with respect, whereas the writings of Charvaka are fairly critical and mocking.

Interesting! Thank you for pointing that out. I wonder how much of that was by free choice and how much was more of a necessity, more of a product of the region and times? I've gotten the impression ancient Indians didn't shy away from open, direct critique and mockery, even slander – then again, how much was provoked by whom? Did the Charvaka keep up that fighting, or did the others continue to bash them harshly?

Quote from Eikadistes

The Charvaka were physical pluralists, like Empedocles, so they divided the material world into elements, and associated atomism with orthodox, religious philosophy.

Oh, I see. I suspected they just hadn't discovered atomism yet – thank you for pointing out they associated it with orthodox, religious philosophy! Given that, I shall withdraw my guess from post #4 that some might have improved on their core physics considerably. It now seems much less likely.

I didn't expect anything on Charvaka in the threads on Buddhism! Here's the difference pointed out in the post Don has linked to:

Quote from Eikadistes

Epicurean theology is comparatively unique. Epicurus would have been opposed to the atheism of Ājīvika, Chārvāka, Nyāya, and Vaisheshika, as well as the agnosticism of Ajñana and Buddhism, as well as the immanent dualism and mysticism of Samkhya and Yoga, and also the divine idealism of Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta. The Jain universe of multiple, physical deities (the Tirthankaras), is the closest ancient Indian theology that in any way resembles Epicureanism. There is not, to my knowledge, any significant historical link between the two at any point in time.

Encouraged by that, I read chapters 10 and 11 of Bhattacharya's later book (More Studies on …), titled "The Cārvāka / Lokāyata and Greek Materialism" and "Materialism: East and West", respectively. The congruence with Epicurean philosophy – even where the slandering by opposing schools and later scholars is concerned… – is astounding. I found just one more difference:

On page 110, Bhattacharya writes: "Both the Presocratic proto-materialist philosophers and the Cārvākas started from the premise of four elements as constituting the whole world." Later, on page 115, he expands: "The system betrays a very early origin, since it is firmly rooted in the concept of four basic elements (bhūtas, viz., earth, air, fire, and water)." Note that the Cārvākas did not consider these elements to be ideals or essences, but thought of them as matter, as constituents of reality as evidenced through the senses. It is my current understanding that some Cārvākas might very well have developed their physics into a more sophisticated system, especially when considering these and related materialist philosophical schools had a living tradition persisting for roughly 1750 of years! For example, while in the 8th century CE, the Cārvākas were still speaking of four elements, two centuries later a related southern Indian school called Bhūtavāda expanded on those by adding the void as a fifth element (page 121/122 in More Studies on …; translated from ancient Tamil as "space"). In the 12th century CE, they all mysteriously vanished.

Unfortunately, the Charvaka's core text as well as their extensions / explanations of it are lost, which means we might not find much more in terms of reasonably certain, reliable differences between their system and Epicurean philosophy…

Hello everyone

a good while ago, I came across the ancient Indian philosophy called Charvaka (Sanskrit: चार्वाक; IAST: Cārvāka), also known as Lokayata (Sanskrit: लोकायत; IAST: Lokāyata). Virtually everything I know about it is found in this article, and it all sounds remarkably Epicurean to me. The academic writer Ramkrishna Bhattacharya has published two English language books on the subject, called Studies on the Cārvāka / Lokāyata and More Studies on the Cārvāka / Lokāyata, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet – and because my book stack and task list are exploding, I probably never will. So, I surrender, and ask y'all:

What do we know about the differences between Epicurean Philosophy and Charvaka / Lokayata?

Thank you!

Thank you all

Yes! And also: This maintains the distinction between the goal (pleasure), the guide (pleasure), and the-thing-to-be-attained (satisfaction/fulfillment). To me, their interaction is rather peculiar: One is aiming for (goal) and following (guide) one thing (pleasure), and then attains that thing plus another (satisfaction/fulfilment), but if one were to aim for or follow the other, would (quite possibly) attain neither (as Cassius said earlier: "I don't think it would be possible for me to say at the end that I was satsified if I had set "being satisfied" as my guide all along the way").

This analogy helped me wrap my head around it; maybe it helps someone else, so here we go: If you lived in a remote cabin, satisfaction/fulfilment could mean having a shed full of firewood (→ filled one's cup of pleasure) for winter. However, if that's so, you would not aim for having a shed full of firewood, because that could mislead you into building a very tiny shed and/or trick you into never using any of the wood you chopped down years and years ago. Instead, you would aim for making as many logs/billets (pleasure) as you can (goal), and let your method be guided by how many you get done (guide).

Quote from Cassius

[…] many people are reading their own definition into Epicurus' view of pleasure, and then taking him to be telling them how to achieve their own limited goals. In contrast, […] many of his specific statements about pleasure can easily be misapplied (as do those who practice asceticism) if they think that his explanation of the general goal is specifically applicable to what they themselves think is "pleasure."

I agree. I would just add that it's natural for many people that the specific causes them to question the general ("Hey, this went well! Why don't we always do that?"), that it is natural to have questions or doubts in various ways, and that ancient Epicureans expected that, which is why so much is devoted to the general principles of finding the right answers. So, I would stress this point: The fault of those you mentioned is not that they thought at all – their mistake is that they applied improper methods in their thinking

(This focus is related to that mathematics analogy I made regarding the nature of Epicurean dogmatism.)

I agree, except I'd avoid conflating goal and guide from the start, because I think there is additional value in addressing both separately at first.

The way I perceive my life, it feels like the goal and guide are usually different; eg: "My goal is qualifying for a good job, my guide is the feedback during training", "My goal is a fat 401k, my guide is a spreadsheet and some graphs". However, it seems like this is not typically the case when the goal is a feeling: "My goal is a happy marriage, and my guide is how happy we are now", "My goal is to overcome anxiety, my guide is how anxious I still am now".

Recognising the identity of goal and guide is a pattern with feeling-based goals, and seeing the dangers involved in using alternative guides ("Aim for satisfaction, and you'll get dissatisfied regret about what could have been") helps me be more firm in where I stand – thank you

Quote from Cassius

Of course, i wouldn't say that it's illegitmate by nature to set your goals low and work to achieve them so you can say that you are "satisfied." There's no way by nature to say that that's wrong, as it could give that type of person100% pleasure if they lower their sights and also experience no pain. But many people, and I would say most people, would look at the missed opportunity of pleasures that could have been achieved at a reasonable cost in pain and have regret - a form of pain - that they did not use their lives more aggressively.

Oh, wow – yes, needlessly lowering my bar would cause so much regret that I never even considered it!

Quote from Cassius

Yes I would like to say at my time of departure that I am satisfied, but paradoxically I don't think it would be possible for me to say at the end that I was satsified if I had set "being satisfied" as my guide all along the way.

That's very true! I don't think I could have come up with that – it is very compelling. Thank you!

Something else came to mind: Satisfaction is the pleasure of successful Choice, whereas Relief is the pleasure of successful Avoidance -- so maybe it worked so well for me, because looking for Satisfaction forced me to look for Choice (instead of staying overly focused on Avoidance). It feels quite right now, and would imply that simply sticking to "Pleasure is the guide and goal, and Julia has to especially remember her Choices!" means I can reap the benefits without risking the dangers