Posts by Julia

Julia's mind-blowing realisation of what should probably have been obvious to her all along

Quote from Cassius

[…] 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?"

The key of VS71 is in the grammar more than the words: "is accomplished", not "is being accomplished"! VS71 places my point of view after (the completion of) the action, not during (the process of) the action. I already vaguely had this perspective in item #4 of this post, but that was almost by chance, without much explicit cognitive awareness. Here's why this distinction matters so much to me:

In my mind, these four items are (almost) entirely separate: 1. desire, 2. emotion, 3. pleasure/pain, and 4. avoidance/inclination. Pleasure/pain are two sides of the same coin, one starts where the other ends. Similarly for avoidance/inclination. (Willpower is a distinct and more complicated thing, which I think doesn't actually matter that much here.) Either way, in my mind, these four concepts/entities/… are not structured in any way that would cause me to lead a happy, or at least logical, or even safe life at all without considerable navigation and active steering.

My desires are mostly sensible, but they don't carry any drive by themself. Only when I visualise having attained them, only when I make vivid the future sensation of pleasure of having made real what I desire, does the drive materialise to direct my willpower outward and toward the pursuit of my desires. Otherwise, either nonsensical emotions continue to make me behave in dysfunctional ways (just because these emotions were once upon a time sensible as they lead to behaviour which then was adaptive) or I display no behaviour at all (such as staring at the ceiling all day long, because the action happens inwardly, inside of me).

I feel negative emotions before/during many pleasurable actions, and positive emotions before/during painful actions. Other times, I strongly avoid things which I want to do, or pursue with fortitude that which I do not want to do. Many things inside of me are rather upside-down and inside-out. For example, being talked to while I brush my teeth frightens me. (I doubt I was born that way, and I'm not recommending this; it just is how I am now.) I can, however, still analyse things cognitively according to whether they will bring me pleasure upon completion. Cognitively – upon completion:

It is much easier to correctly predict (cognitively, by thinking ahead) pleasure/pain about a result, than it is to correct my contorted feelings about an action and its result (emotionally, the feeling-ahead), let alone to correct the emotions during the action (the feeling-now).

For example, even when eating disgusts me, I still like having eaten. When I jump ahead cognitively and live in the conclusion, I can begin eating with reasonable ease and won't get too perturbed by the process, either. Once reality catches up with where I was all along – in the result, after it is done – things are just fine. This means I can do something which I otherwise avoid, because I have cognitively predicted that the result of having done it will bring me pleasure and mentally stayed in the space of that prediction – if I were to think about the process of doing it, my aversion would kick in and keep me away, even if is good for me, even if I desire it, even if I want to, even though I have considerable willpower. If I derive everything in this way, I can create a life which is capable of making me happy – but it doesn't come natural to me at all. It does – at least in the initial phase I'm still in – even cause many unpleasant emotions, which only slowly begin to subside as the first results-of-action start to trickle in, the unpleasant emotions during the actions that lead to these results begin to fade, and further yet, the first emotional expectations (rather than cognitive predictions) of pleasures-of-results begin to form, still faint and vague, but increasingly present all the same.

Emotions, desires/aversions, and avoidance/inclination are learned, whereas pleasure/pain is not, and it turns out the pleasure/pain I feel about results-of-actions never actually changed; it was merely buried. Artificially twisted consequences-to-results lead to emotions associated with action and emotions associated with consequences-to-results, but not to emotions associated with the results-as-such: e.g., doing xyz scares me, the result of xyz would be pleasurable, but the thought of it also brings fear of the consequence, such as shame. The being-scared and fear-of-shame are learned. The scaredness is attached to the action, which offers a lot of sensory anchors for emotional memory, and it is independent of a 3rd party; that's pretty hard to unlearn, because sensations remain largely the same whenever xyz is repeated. The shame is associated with a 3rd party, thus fear-of-shame is (comparatively) easy to unlearn once the source-of-twisted-consequences is gone, as there is little sensory attachment with the result or the action leading to it, rather than with particular (past) circumstances and people.

Curiously, while I am breaking the rules and mental chains of my previous life, I imagine the same basic structure at work in some premeditated crimes: e.g., robbing a bank is scary, having the money would be pleasurable, but the thought of the consequences is a deterrent. Only by focusing on the result and staying focussed on it can the emotions about/during the process and its potential consequences be overcome. Upon release from prison, being haunted by what happened during the supposed-peaceful-heist-gone-wrong and the experience gained by having done time* will amplify the deterrent. However, crucially, the predicted pleasure of suddenly having lots of money remains just the same.

This is why I know to do anything to begin with, and what to do when I do something: because “what [I will feel] if the object of my desire is accomplished” is either pleasure or pain, and unlike any emotion or value-judgement, this compass and guide has not been corrupted!

_{* (Just to clarify: According to statistics, locking people up and throwing away the key doesn't make them better members of society, but giving people ample time to work on themselves and offering them plenty of assistance with and opportunities in which to do so, including behind bars, sometimes helps some to be somewhat better.)}

Things which (in comparison) seem minor to me now, and which we seem to agree on anyway

Quote from Cassius

I think Epicurus would say that the practical implications of political issues as the affect individuals cannot be ignored, and I would personally encourage everyone to firmly maintain awareness of world affairs that could impact them, and adjust their lives accordingly.

Quote from Cassius

The time spent on feeling bad about suffering is just subtracted from your life never to come again. […]

VS10. Remember that you are mortal, and have a limited time to live, […]

[…] Some things can't be changed, but there's usually something that can be done to improve almost any situation.

I concur; however, I tend to get hung up on politics, which makes it important for me to stay out of its day-to-day affairs and focus on overall developments only. For example, there's no point in me fretting over the countless instances of misconduct of politicians, parties and press, no matter how grievous, while a war is being brewed up all over the continent.

More generally speaking, I think it is very easy to get lost in ultimately pointless things nowadays, because today information is practically endless. I need to be very careful about delineating being "comprehensively informed" (painful, paralysing, …) versus being "sufficiently informed (often also painful by itself, but necessary to ensure pleasure long-term). For example, it isn't necessary to buy the absolute best value-for-money speaker (comprehensive information required), if all I want is to sing along in the shower (sufficient information is enough).

Quote from Kalosyni

[…] which is helpful for dealing with frustration […]

It's a good chart, but neither frustration, anxiety nor tension were the issue.

Quote from Cassius

What I want to think further about is whether it makes sense to elevate the "is it in my control?" to a first level division

True, and very good point. If one is powerless but enjoys thinking about something – maybe the outcome of match of one's favourite sports team – then there would be nothing wrong with that. For me – by chance – it happens to be that everything I do in fact think about but cannot change are things which make me very unhappy (primarily contemporary politics).

So, more correctly, the first question should be: "Does it cause pleasure?"

If it does bring pleasure, it should be analysed further (left half of chart).

If it does not bring pleasure, it should be avoided unless it is a feeling, in which case it should be allowed without getting lost in it (“feel through it but avoid melancholy, etc”, because suppressing feelings only causes problems down the road). This basically awards and exemption to unpleasant, but natural & necessary emotions (e.g. grief, loss). Technically, with sufficient foresight, they could be handled by the left-hand side of the chart -- but it might be valuable to grant them a special category like this, because they're usually overwhelming and have a tendency to shut down rational thought. For example, if I were given the option, I (or certainly a younger me) would probably decide that my grief is limitless (unnatural) anyway and thus to be avoided (equal parts naive to or wilfully ignorant of the fact that this will cause psychological baggage for the rest of my life), rather than allow myself to feel it, to work through the emotion (and thus trade unpleasantness now for more of a spring in my step later).

Thank you, Cassius! I feel a lot better about this revision!

Revised version:

Before I came across Epicurean philosophy, I found this flow chart online. Sometimes, when I'm confused, I now find myself circling back to a similar basic structure of thought, albeit with the contents rather different, so I took it upon myself to professionally and artfully tweak the original chart to match my current thinking. Feedback and comments welcome

Quote from Root304

It is complete dumb luck that I happened upon the one Philosophy that would singularly be the antidote to my ills...

I'm very glad you did have that complete dumb luck the "one joint too many made me psychotic" theme is part of the lives of two former acquaintances, so I can begin to imagine what it must have been like, how much effort it must have taken, and am happy that you made it back onto more solid ground. Well done!

Quote from Twentier

a general way of saying "religion is social construct that evolved from basic human behaviors"

(Just to keep things clear: Religion is just a big cult, and a cult is just a predatory power structure which abuses vulnerable individuals by satisfying their need for attachment and care, while instilling fears in them, and causing them to raise their kids with the same empty, vulnerable hearts such that they, too, will fall prey to the same power structure and it can franchise. Kind of like many modern people who suffer from the limitless (vain & empty) desire for status will over-attached to a brand name to be a temporary band aid to their deeper psychological need to be seen and cared for as a person… -- Being religious is more specific than simply just having faith in something supernatural.)

In case line 3 “Reclaim agency by recovering” isn't applicable to you, something along the lines of “Realising agency is resilience” might be useful, as it relates to the mechanics I've visualised in the diagram below: We cannot change the predictability of the world around us. We'll remind ourselves of pleasure in a later line. We also call to mind our Goals & Values, as well as our Responsibility in other lines. So line 3 is really all about calling to mind the abilities, skills and resources available to us, and realising how much power (over our personal life) we do actually have, which to me is resilience-in-the-face-of-adversity. Resilience-in-the-face-of-despair is delivered by activity, by being active, by commitment to action – which is equally encapsulated in saying "Realising agency is resilience" because as soon as I make myself acutely aware of my power, that momentary despair will transform into a commitment to act (as long as all the other items from the diagram are in place, as long as all the other nine lines are kept in mind also; nothing works in isolation). When I have agency, I realise that I do not need others to behave a certain way (thought it might be nice) and that nothing is immanent that threatens to change how okay I am deep down. (I have added a pointer to this alternative line 3 in my original post above… ).

Quote from Cassius

Sounds like a very good approach to me!

Thank you, Cassius. I appreciate your approval – having a 2nd pair of eyes make sure I'm not missing anything vital or have anything critically twisted is helpful to me

Quote from Twentier

she very clearly witnessed the visual features of two, very important people from her past, who had both died under tragic circumstances. They both looked like they were at their prime (ageless) and they were perfectly blissful (happy), figures that, as she explained, ultimately provided her with comfort.

There are no outside persons inside my mind like that, so I would not expect to at some point have an experience of this kind. For me, death was different every time:

It was terror and fright.

It was despair and frantic effort.

It was abandonment and sadness.

It was erratic chaos and powerlessness.

It was relief and release in death by a thousand cuts.

Quote from Twentier

While on a soup of opiates, going through organ-failure

I am tempted to say her medication and condition influence her state of mind and allowed her to paint a more pleasant picture. For example, many opiates are serotonergic, which makes them pleasant and soothing, even beyond their specific opioid effects. She was probably cared for externally, so her fight was internal. That isn't always the case.

For example, when I ended up in hypothermia as a teenager, I had been injured and left for dead in difficult terrain. I knew where I was, so I knew what I had to do: 1. reach a path around six hours below my position, 2. three hour hike to nearest settlement. I soon resigned from life – paused, cried, made my peace; quickly, no daylight to waste! – and turned off all complex thought, so as to function like an autopilot in highway hypnosis, as if in trance. I remained in this thoughtless, un-aware, mindless state until I had reached the path and eventually lost consciousness while dragging myself towards the settlement. By chance, I was found, woken up – and immediately resumed on my 2nd mission objective: reach the settlement. The lady who had found me wanted me to stay put. I thought "Settlement!" and brushed her off. She wanted me to conserve my strength. "Settlement!", one step. She wanted me to stay in place until mountain rescue arrives. "Settlement!", another step. She said this and that, and I thought "Settlement! Settlement!", and just kept executing my task. The lady didn't make sense. She wasn't part of the plan. To me, she was just an odd and oddly persistent obstacle. If I hadn't been found, I'd simply have slipped away while asleep. If so, then what's my point with this story?

Did I dream, maybe? I don't remember – but I'm quite certain that my dream would have been about walking or crawling, about reaching my goal, about survival. Just like the two helpers which appeared for your wife were there to help her reach her goal. You see, to survive any given situation, we must survive it two-fold: as a body, and as a person. She could not do anything much for her body. It was being cared for. She had to focus on her survival as a person (and indirectly help her body in doing that). For a person to survive, it needs a secure attachment (the experience of a bond with other people), needs their attention/attunement/presence/connection as a person (instead of just the existence of a warm body in proximity; classic example here is the Still Face Experiment, less well-known is that the same thing happens with slightly delayed video feeds), and for enough space in that connection for any feelings; otherwise, defence mechanisms are activated to self-regulate, instead of regulating oneself through interaction with another; these are compartmentalisation, flattening of affect, et cetera. However, most defences are expensive cognitively (which wastes precious biochemical energy), and they keep the body in a higher state of arousal (in the sense of alert-ness/ready-ness) for a longer time. To avoid all that, it makes sense to have happy, friendly helpers guide the way, soothe the mind, and allow it to effectively regulate the autonomous nervous system, allow it to effectively send whichever signals the body needs to survive.

I survived as a person, because I wasn't even present as one. I came-to in a medical facility, even though I was awake the whole time. Shutting off conscious awareness is a dissociative defence, helps to conserve energy and allows to keep the physical state of high arousal going for however long is needed, which made sense in my example. I'd say that doesn't make one or the other more or less of a near-death experience. It just makes them different experiences.

And with that little opening speech, I circle back to the gods: I don't think near-death experiences are very consistent, and I think they very much depend on who you ask and what they've experienced: pharmaceuticals, social context, age (especially child vs teenager/adult), type of survival situation, cultural backdrop. With the experiences so different, can we really conceive of them as to "pertaining to gods"? Shouldn't we rather think of them as nature's hopefully-not-last gift to us? Or should we rather redefine "god" in terms of what you've said below, regarding altered-state-of-mind experiences, more along the lines of "plant teachers", along the lines of shamanic and faith traditions which managed to continue their use of "divine rituals" of this type – which really is (or rather: was) quite omnipresent globally for most of humanity's existence

Quote from Twentier

I had way too much nitrous oxide before/during a procedure, and I was absolutely sure I was going to permanently lose consciousness. Nonetheless, the experience was calming: life was what it was, what's left is what it is ... might as well smile. This is common with the ego death.

I hear you, but I'd like to note that – In my humble opinion – the calm "might as well smile" experience would more likely have been due to the pharmacology of nitrous oxide, than be secondary to the experience of ego death. Would you clarify which way you meant it?

Quote from Twentier

To spontaneously witness the form of a 20-something friend during "dream-states" at various points in one's life would have been much more significant to a non-"photo-centric" world.

I agree.

Quote from Twentier

2. I live in a prohibitionary era with regards to psychedelics. […] The point is, the average ancient Greek was not exposed to "Reefer Madness" and "Just Say 'No'" and would have seen been more likely to associate religion with the state of divine intoxication and the rituals used to induce it.

I agree.

PS: Regarding the two-foldedness of survival, If your body survives, but you as a person don't, your body will exist, but have “lost its mind”, one way or another; the simplest example is stupor, a "lights on but nobody home" type situation in which the body is physically fine and awake, but there's no activity relating to the outside world. The human just sits and stares. Countless other ways are possible, but this is Epicurean Friends, not Trauma Therapy dot com – just thought I should clarify that I meant it literal and not in some esoteric woo-woo type way

Quote from Twentier

Given that a potentially-psychedelic brew was ingested at the climax of a mystery cult, and it is written that he"is found to have taken part in all the traditional festivals and sacrifices. […] he says that he shared in all the festivals […] and that while he was joining in celebrating the festival of the Choes [at Anthesteria] and the urban mysteries [Attic Dionysia] | and the other festivals at a meagre dinner..." it would might been odd for him not to ingest kykeon.

If something like kykeon was ingested regularly, and kykeon can contain ergot, or potentially another psychoactive agent, then ... well, indeed, "knowledge of the gods" was "evident".

I agree. As per Wikipedia, it seems quite certain that Kykeon contained ergot, which might make Epicurus' idea of the gods and the intermundia much more conceptual-spiritual (for lack of a better word) than physical – which does not make them any less real, because we can sense them…?

For those wondering: Ergot is a fungus growing on cereal grains, which produces a wide range of bio-active chemicals such as ergometrine (used as a drug after childbirth, still an essential in many parts of the world), but most notably for our discussion here would be ergine, which is LSD minus the diethyl group, which in turn is like magic mushrooms' psilocybin plus a mild amphetamine, which I'd guess to be very vaguely comparable to being stoned-out-of-one's-mind on cannabis while also having ingested enough caffeine to offset the tiredness/numbness/lethargy/… that would induce. (Oh my, the weird knowledge my sponge-and-sieve brain decides to remember! *shrug*)

Quote from Twentier

the Epicurean gods jive with my self-induced psychedelic experiences more than they are cohering to any one animalistic conception I've tried to formulate.

I agree, because as mentioned…

Quote from Julia

It seems easy to bring this to congruence with my experiences of life and death, which is quite comforting to me

…I find even the idea of entirely denying any and all not-physically-explainable experience to be quite displeasing, or rather…

Quote from Julia

Even though I know that everything is atoms and void, and that therefore all my experiences must have just been unusual neuronal activity, there is a big, deep, and profound felt sense of importance and truth attached to the experiences, such that I find it hard to dismiss them.

…that even though they are physically explainable, I find their subjective weight ought to be honoured adequately, instead of being brushed aside as a mere biochemical fluke…

…at the same time, however, that feels like a slippery slope into theism, and as such, I'm quite happy with the gods having a blast in the intermundia, and my brain merely having "tuned into that other dimension" for a little while (which, physically speaking, is delusional – I'm aware of that, but I like the idea anyhow).

Quote from Twentier

I found one! Kykeon.

Thank you! I'll have a look into that

Quote from Twentier

not just directionless experimenting (usually unethical) for the sake of experimenting.

I think they're seeking to enhance themselves (artificial senses, nootropics, …), in the same way that I'm using tools (car, knife, …) – so I don't see it as directionless, I don't see it as experimenting for the sake of experimenting, and I don't think it can be unethical what one does to one's own body (unless whatever that is inevitably causes a considerable burden to others; such as a parent burdening a child by being an addict or by wilfully disabling their body). My basic rule would be: My body, my choice.

However, I think they're (almost always) misguided in their longing for such enhancements, because they seem to be (almost always) driven by limitless desires (vain & empty) or their underlying desire is natural-but-unnecessary and they got the risks wrong, skewing the results of their hedonic calculation (which, to me, doesn't make it unethical, it just makes it stupid ).

Quote from Twentier

- Similar to Charvaka and Yangism in their hedonist ethics and naturalistic physics. But they are atheistic and non-theistic traditions, so they reject any images of God as having validity.

Thank you for mentioning those! I found it interesting to read a short summary about them. To me, it is nice to know Epicurean philosophy isn't entirely a one-off after all.

Quote from Root304

I also have fortunately known, congregated and am among many poor and frugal folk who understand the true value of a friend. You can make so much happen in terms of material and moral enrichment even with meager means if you indeed hold your friends close and your enemies afar. Living one's life receiving and repaying wiselike, in excess and in kind is a most gratifying way to live under the present conditions.

Reading that, I couldn't help but instinctively reject the notion of friends, which then told me I have some more healing to do – and when I thought I have some more healing to do, I rejected that in turn, as an expression of assimilationism into the social construct of normalcy, as an internalised norm contrary to my own ways of being. It shall be interesting to see where I land on that subject a decade or so down the road, when the experience of friendship might be safe, affordable and attainable.

Quote from Root304

The "immortality" of Epicurean friendship surely extends to who and what I am in the world as I appear to others as well. My Father, who has past, was to me not his mind but the way he was received to me through the senses and emotions; smells, feelings, touch, voice, etc. The Epicurean soul must surely include the biochemical, mental and bodily memories between people as well.

To me, the members of family (who all have passed), are concepts, interaction models, "software", disembodied (which is probably both bizarre and unhealthy…). Either way, I don't perceive the world as physical as you do. To me, experientially, the world is just the medium in which patterns interact – the patterns being selves, conscious concepts, "brain software", or whatever you would want to call it. To me, this is the difference between a person (the entity inside a body) and a human (the animal). The soul, to me, is the mind of the body, as opposed to the mind which hosts the person. I suppose this distinction is hard to explain, let alone make visceral, to anyone who hasn't seen or experienced a body alive and well, yet devoid of a person inside. It's…like an abandoned care with the engine running, like a house with the lights on when nobody's home. Most people then just sit and stare, other's go through very basic motions cued in by their environment (eg they drink when presented with water, but their overall actions are utterly unplanned and directionless, like opening and closing doors for no apparent reason, taking objects them replacing them, just doing the habit-/instinct-based actions of whatever they find in their surroundings). Such a body, however, still has primitive feelings of active/tired, warm/cold, hunger/thirst, and pain/pleasure. Not sure if I explained that well…?

Anyways, this is why some parts of the interaction patterns which to me mean my family are alive as long as I will be: I absorbed those aspects of them and continue to repeat them (in modified ways), which metaphorically is sort of like replicating an inherited DNA of behaviour.

Quote from Twentier

Here's (above) an image that depicts (to me) the gods

Off topic, just curious: Did ancient Epicureans use mind-altering substances (other than alcohol), as the painting suggests?

Quote from Twentier

the gods primarily as mental concepts, rather than as physical object to which mental concepts corresponds.

If the gods were merely a special type of concept they would not be subject to the laws of nature.

Quote from Cassius

I suppose it's not inconceivable that individual gods might conclude after eons that variety really does not add to complete pleasure, and decide voluntarily to go out of existence.

That is why I cannot imagine the gods as self-aware and conscious, as indicated above. If the gods are more like fancy jellyfish, like reptile minds, bundles of instinct, then they can be eternally happy without being bored by the passage of time or the constant repetition. The question, of course, is whether something that has no self-awareness and isn't conscious in the way we understand it can be "happy" to begin with, but I'd say that every self-regulating system has a state which is "pleasing" to the system because it is within all the tolerance and reference ranges for its operating conditions: not too warm, not too cold, not too hungry, …

Quote from Root304

The theology could be a way to understand that blessedness comes in many varieties and is possible to nearly grasp in most contexts.

As much as I agree with the first half of that sentence, I don't see how blessedness "is possible to nearly grasp", shy of being a healthy heiress in a liberal country, rich enough to be free from worries (other than love) while still being poor enough to fly below the paparazzi radar. That would indeed be winning the lottery.

Tangent: Personal thoughts on Transhumanism

Quote from Root304

I find tech integration and most transhuman concepts beyond healing diseases to be pretty disconcerting.

I find them disconcerting, too – but at the same time, I also find them liberating. I wear glasses, know people with artificial sensory implants (for hearing, for sensing electro-magnetic fields, …), artificial joints, vessels and valves, artificially enhanced attention, executive function and memory. One universal of advanced civilisations appears to be that people raised within them are taught to favour modifying their environment (instead of submitting to it), and as a person, I reside within a human, but I am not it, and as such, my body is as much my environment as the flat I use to shelter it, and the society I use to shelter that flat. What, then, is the difference between a tattoo and a picture on the wall? What, then, is the difference between air conditioning and an implant? Both should be fine if they bring me pleasure – the disconcerting aspect is the new and severe power dynamics that can (but don't need to) come with this development. Will natural humans be at a disadvantage to enhance ones? They already are, so that is obvious, and nothing new – those with resources always used them to establish and enshrine their own advantages. But will we be at the mercy of tech corporations? Probably, but not necessarily. So I choose to hope for the best and ignore it otherwise, because I can't change the weather, politics, or the future (yet ).

Quote from Bryan

Certainly, the environment supporting gods is naturally occurring between the kosmoi by automatic infinite processes of nature

I like that idea (if you mean what I think you do ), but hadn't thought of it that way – what is the Epicurean position on these kosmoi? It seems easy to bring this to congruence with my experiences of life and death, which is quite comforting to me

(Even though I know that everything is atoms and void, and that therefore all my experiences must have just been unusual neuronal activity, there is a big, deep, and profound felt sense of importance and truth attached to the experiences, such that I find it hard to dismiss them. I have always stuck with the thought that what I experienced where, in fact, some kind of other dimensions or realms, simply because that brought me comfort and did me no harm, as I didn't let it affect my judgement negatively (I did let it affect my judgement only in reality-tested, hedonically-sensible ways, via insights, through lessons learnt).)

Tangent: Incorporeal entities vs patterns, and proper vocabulary for them

Quote from Bryan

Although the only incorporeal entity is the void, which cannot think or do anything at all. Nothing incorporeal can act or be acted upon.

Well that is technically correct (which means I was technically wrong), but…

Here's a more verbose elaboration of what I meant to say, and I realise what I say doesn't seem to align cleanly with Epicurean philosophy, but I do think that it actually does align. Maybe I'm just missing some vocabulary to express myself well in this regard? If so, please do teach me some words!

What I meant with "incorporeal entity", et cetera:

Is mathematics real? No, because nobody can touch it, measure it, sense it. It has no weight, no dimensions, doesn't age or swerve. Does that mean it is void? No, because we can use it, and so it has to be something. The same could be said about knowledge itself, language itself, about all concepts. What are concepts in Epicurean philosophy? Patterns of atoms? But then, what's the difference between a pattern and an incorporeal entity? Aren't both the same thing?

Software is a pattern that always has to exist in one or the other corporeal representation (various vastly different ways to code the same pattern, different ways to represent it are possible, from punch cards to rote memorisation of source code to flash drives). But the fact that it depends on having a corporeal representation doesn't make the pattern itself corporeal. I'm not quite sure how to describe that. (And I do realise that what I've just said doesn't quite fit into Epicurean philosophy…?)

The various "incarnations" (for lack of a better word) of a piece of software can act and be acted upon, but even if they were destroyed (overwritten, deleted), they could also be restored perfectly (reinstalled, restored from backup, reinfected) – and the places from which they were restored could differ, such that tape could be used to restore a hard disk, and furthermore the source of that restoration could even be "dead" (for lack of a better word), because it was merely a backup drive, not attached to any hardware able to execute it (bring it to life) – much like a virus is considered dead, because it has no own metabolism, but it still carries the DNA and everything else needed to infect a new host cell, where it will be brought to life and replicate itself.

The same processes which exist with software/hardware today could, theoretically, exist in nature, if one brain could copy (part of) its content into another brain through some kind of neural link (just like one human can program another (largely through language and physical acts)), and even more so should be possible with (quantum) computers (which could reside inside fancy space-dwelling robots). The gods could then be software which moves itself around – always needing to exist in one physical form or another, one arrangement of atoms or another, but not bound to any one of them, without becoming any one of them, just like a virus can infect many host cells without becoming the host cell, just like software can run on many different computers, just like ideas can spread from one human mind to another…?

When talking about the gods, I think we really need to stop conflating oneself with one's body.

Because the gods aren't troubled, I think they would inhabit machines which can maintain themselves, maintain each other, and, if ever needed, replicate somehow. Such a machine can be biological, like human bodies, but it can also be a fancy robot housing a quantum computer, and that fancy robot could actually be a space ship, travelling to harvest raw materials and energy, so it can keep running and renewing itself perpetually.

The god, then, would not be the space ship, would not be the robot, or the animal body. The god would be in the space ship, in the robot, in the animal. It would be the software that runs inside of it, the consciousness in its mind, merely inhabiting it, possessing it for a while, for fun, for pleasure and to sustain its existence. Just like software exists and lives in, but remains different from a computer. Just like I can inhabit and possess a costume to wear to a costume party, and will make certain experiences because of that costume. Experiences which I wouldn't make without wearing it, and which would be different if my costume was different – and which would have above-average likelihood to be similar if someone else wore the same costume.

To the gods, their corporeal existence is like fashion and style are to us. We get into trouble if we don't wear anything, but as long as we wear something, we can basically be whoever we want – including the same over and over, including someone new every day.

So my guess is the gods are incorporeal entities ("software") inhabiting fancy bio-mechanical space ships ("hardware"), which repair and replicate themselves. I would need to think about whether they are conscious, whether they are introspective, whether they are self-aware – I'm not sure if that is actually pleasing.

Why wouldn't they be sophisticated instincts inside mechanical jellyfish happily shape-shifting through space – no introspection, no sense of self as we know it?

PS: After all, simpler animals like reptiles can be happy and unhappy, feel pleasure and pain – but they're not self-aware or introspective, they're not equipped with a consciousness the way we have one. They're also not social animals. Why would the gods be different from a happy reptile in these regards?

These are arguments and actions which help me stay afloat and active. While I discuss the intended meanings line by line, no one line is meant to stand in isolation. The wording is intentionally short and formulaic, such that I can easily call to mind the intended meanings, without needing too much mental paraphrasing, because for this compilation to be practical in daily life, it has to be easy to think the concepts in contains (just like a car is a car, not a "thing with four wheels and a seat and windows and …", which would be very tedious and clunky to think every single time, instead of just thinking "car"). An alternative, more generally applicable line 3 is offered in post #3 below. With that said, here we go:

1. I want you to know that we care.
2. Self-love is an act of resistance.
3. Reclaim agency by recovering.
4. Imagination is discipline.
5. Discipline is freedom.
6. Freedom is pleasure.
7. Pleasure is life.
8. Life is finite.
9. Embrace it.
10. No dread of dissolution.

1. I want you to know that we care. This line establishes that someone else wrote this little text, is talking to me, and that I am part of a group. It expresses that the group cares about me, cares for me, and that they care about what I do, don't do, how I do what I do, and how I feel the while. It offers attachment and empathy by saying "I might not know the answer, but I know that being here with you is at least part of it." (Sympathy is cognitive and disconnected, it says: "It's not that bad. It could be worse. At least there's the silver-lining of xyz." Empathy is emotional and connected, it says: "I'm here. You are seen. I feel you.") It also calls to mind my responsibilities and the expectations I have of myself with regard to the people around me, and how I would feel if I were to let them down.
2. Self-love is an act of resistance. Shame is a two-person emotion, which says "You are wrong." (It is opposed to guilt, which says: "You did wrong." Guilt also does not require a social, interpersonal context; guilt is between the person and their conscience; not between one person and another.) This line helps me remember what the opposite of shame is self-love, and that I can act out this opposite out of defiance (against the people and circumstances which got me in my situation), even though I don't actually feel self-love yet. It also tells me that when I don't know how to love myself, I can simply act oppositional. This has the benefit of being a fight-response (of the Friend-Flight-Fight-Freeze-Fawn-Flop-Faint survival responses), which has agency (as opposed to Freeze-Fawn-Flop-Faint). Defiance is other-centric, which is theoretically bad, but an easier point to start from, because why would I be nice to myself while I'm still ashamed of myself? By being other-centric how I see myself doesn't matter. I should still do it, even though I don't think I deserve it. By being a fight-response, it also helps me repossess my own agency from those who took it. Eventually, an as-outside-so-inside fake-it-till-you-become-it effect happens and I've essentially tricked myself into actually believing I have worth, that I am worthy of care, and of my own self-love and self-compassion. By making it about resistance / defiance / opposition, my immediate dismissal and avoidance of self-care gets bypassed, and by living a self-loving life, I eventually accumulate enough experience to the contrary to mute and overwrite the previous knowledge and experience, making "I am worthy of love" not just dry cognitive knowledge, but a felt emotional knowledge. (That's the same knowledge-difference between "Speeding is risky" and "I just crashed my car.")
3. Reclaim agency by recovering. Not having agency, being disempowered, powerless, forced into a certain position or onto a certain track is something which can cause me to submit, accept, and make all the mental and physical arrangements to live happily in my cage, whatever it may be. At the same time, I don't want that. It's just something I do, force of habit. So this line reminds me that I can have agency now, that I can reclaim it and step into my life. I get to choose what will happen. I get to write the remaining chapters of my life. This is something which I know and don't know at the same time; it slips through my mind like sand running through my fingers. I still tend to default to a mental prison, so I remind myself that the door is unlocked. All I need to do is step outside, and only I can do that. (I need to change my own thinking, just like I need to do my own understanding of things, even when people teach them to me.) My next problem is not knowing how to do that. How do I step outside, reclaim my agency? I can do that by recovering, because luckily, I was living as though being an empowered adult at one point. While I actually had no power then, I did go through all the same motions – so all I need to do now is choose to do them. (With minor modifications, but they are still all fundamentally the same, and I know that I can do them, because I already did before.) I also know from fictional and biographical TV and books what being an adult entails and looks like, so I even have plenty of good and bad examples to learn from. If I do all the responsible adult stuff, if I do what recovery means for me, my life will once again be mine, and I'll have reclaimed my agency.
4. Imagination is discipline. This line reminds me that motivation is fleeting, and that I should rely on discipline instead. Motivation is a dreamy notion which comes when I'm in comfort and not doing the thing. Discipline is what I need to actually do the thing, even when it is uncomfortable. It also reminds me that I should not confuse discipline with fear (such as the fear of what would happen if I don't follow through). If I work from fear, I give up my agency, and easily slip into a fawn or freeze response. At best I still try to flee – but it is hard to get to anywhere specific if the activity I'm engaged in is running away. Instead, I should build discipline, which is based on goals. When I see, hear, taste, feel – when I imagine having attained my goals vividly, I will remember that I actually want to do what I was reluctant to do a minute ago, because in the equation of hedonic calculus it'll be worth it. To be disciplined, all I need to do is to remember my goals, to imagine them, to imagine having accomplished them; to call to mind and keep in mind all that having accomplished them will unlock in my life. When doing this, it is important to mentally move to and stay in the point in time after the action at hand, to the point in time when the object of desire has been accomplished (see here for more on this detail).
5. Discipline is freedom. I can either have all sorts of freedoms or I can be free from responsibilities; I cannot have both. So I accept responsibilities as a necessary evil to gain all sorts of freedoms as a reward. For example, I drive responsibly to keep my license, and I go to work, because money buys freedom of choice (what to eat and wear, where to live, leisure activities, and so on). Accepting responsibility to trade it for freedoms-of-all-sorts is why I should establish the goal-based discipline from the previous line; eg: My goal is a road trip, so I mustn't crash my car and need to earn more money, so I have to have the discipline to drive safely and go to work, and in doing that, I gain the freedom to go on my road trip.
6. Freedom is pleasure. Without these freedoms-of-all-sorts my life could be free from responsibilities, but it would then also be almost devoid of pleasure. Pleasure is fun and makes me happy, so I want to have these freedoms-of-all-sorts. The freedoms-of-all-sorts include being free-from-shame (shame is the social power which limits our actions and self-expression) and the freedom brought by agency, by stepping-into life (lines 2 and 3). Avoiding responsibility leads to a loss of pleasure by leading to a loss of the freedoms-of-all-sorts.
7. Pleasure is life. Just because my life is devoid of pleasure doesn't mean I'm literally dead. So "life" is metaphorical in this line: Being alive, actually living my life is the same thing as seeking pleasure (because what else is there? We seek neither pain nor virtue, and if we did, that wouldn't be a play that is pleasing for very long…). Because I don't quite know what "being alive" and "living my life" even mean, it comes in handy that I can measure how alive I am by how much time and effort I spend in the pursuit of pleasure. This way I can hold myself accountable, parent myself, and have a guide to all of my actions.
8. Life is finite. My body is ageing, so my time is finite. I want to be able to retire with some comfort, so I need to accumulate the necessary funds while I'm still well and able. I can disappear into and live inside my mind, and I actually like it there – so no matter my outside reality, I always have some pleasures left, because they're inside of me. However, I also like to feel a breeze on my face, to hear leaves rustle, and to watch birds. Compared to physical experience, it's never quite the same when I just imagine things, no matter how good I get at it. If I want to retreat into my mind now, I ought to remind myself that I can still do that once my body is frail, but that once my body is frail, I can no longer do many of the things which are goals of mine (imagination from line 4, alive-ness from line 7). So I should optimise my life in the outside, physical world (instead of building fancy things inside my mind) – and I should not waste any time, especially not in confusion.
9. Embrace it. After having been lost in thought about lines 1-8, this is to bring me back to my immediate surroundings and the task at hand. Stepping into my life means stepping up to the plate. Everything else is contrary to any number of the previous lines. Everything else is avoidance. There is no other way, and there is nothing to wait for. There is only my commitment to pleasure, and it implies a call to action. Apart from a commitment to action, this line also contains not just a mere tolerance of, not just an acceptance, but an embracing of that which is unpleasant-but-worth-it in life. Embracing life differs from enjoying life in that embracing it hints at a the more complex truth: There will inevitably be unpleasant tasks, even painful experiences, and avoiding them at all cost only leads to even greater pain. I choose not just to tolerate, not just to accept, but to embrace pain-that-is-worth-it, because the reward in pleasure will, in due course, outweigh my upfront payment in pain. This way, ultimately, I will enjoy life – but if I start with a focus on enjoying, rather than embracing, I end up avoiding what is unpleasant, I withdraw from the world and the inevitable pains accumulate, tainting what little pleasure might still remain.
10. No dread of dissolution. A memento mori – you might have heard it before – and also a reminder that I should not seek absolute security. Death is not just part of life, but it is also nothing to me. I should not stop swimming just because it puts me at risk of drowning. (I also shouldn't be reckless, but that's encapsulated in lines 1, 2 and 5: If I love myself and can thus accept that others care about me, I end up caring about myself for my own sake and for the sake of the others' feelings, which will make it easy to be disciplined and not throw away by recklessness the freedom of being able-bodied, the freedom of being financially secure, the freedoms-of-all-sorts.)

I've printed and hung those ten lines where I can see them while I write my journal and plan my next day in the evening. Whenever I get stuck or disheartened – during that evening ritual or throughout the day itself – I seem to find all I need by retracing the reasoning outlined above and by doing the actions implied in there (eg line 4: "Remember what all of this is for and vividly imagine it."). As part of the same evening activity, I write down which pleasures I work towards, as a list of less than a dozen bullet points, which came about by asking myself: “If I was dying, what would I most regret not having done or owned? If I was dying, what would I most want an honest obituary to say about me?” I re-write this little list every evening, even if nothing on it has changed, and I do so after I've journaled and planned out the next day. Journaling and planning first help me clear my mind, and re-writing my list afterwards ensures that it will be the last thing on my mind when I go to bed, such that I don't get lost in day-to-day minutiae and everyday worries, such that my brain will know which problems to solve using the dreams I'm about to have, and such that I remember why I want to get out of bed the next morning, even though it is warm, safe, soft and cosy – such that I stay focused on pleasure

Quote from Cassius

But you should *never* consider yourself "in trouble" for lengthy contributions!

Oh, I meant from real-life people, not from y'all apparently, skipping sleep to write lengthy forum posts is detrimental to performance

Quote from Cassius

the posh English approach scares me when I think about how they can read "Tea and crumpets at Two is Delicious" with exactly the same poshness and diffidence and tone of voice as when the read: "So great is the power of religion to prompt men to evil deeds."

That's true for every accent and language though, isn't it. They will all transport their stereotypes no matter what you say in them. If hillbillies colloquially used received pronunciation we'd be laughing at the King.

Quote from Kalosyni

there is so much here on the forum that it may not have been noticed

I agree. It might be worthwhile shifting more activity towards building/growing the wiki and other more organised knowledge bases. I already got in trouble for how much time I spent on some forum posts, so I doubt I'll be editing much myself, but I think that would be the way to go

Eg, have a list of narrations, a list of songs by genre, ….

Kalosyni Your ever-changing avatar pictures are all very pretty!

Robin Homer, a British voice over actor, has narrated Cicero.

Cicero - On the Ends of Good and Evil: Epicureanism

Part 1 of my narration of Cicero's On the Ends of Good and Evil. (De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum).Torquatus provides an outline of Epicureanism and Cicero giv...

www.youtube.com

Eikadistes Congratulations on the new site! I like it a lot – feels like an online Hedonicon, which is excellent, because that is bound to save me 396g on checked luggage. That's right, exactly 396 That pleasing number is what my scale says the Hedonicon weighs, and with Twentier's attention to detail, I'm sure he did it on purpose

Quote from Cassius

or the Dashboard (pretty much the same as "Recent Activities, but gives a selection of latest graphics etc from other areas of the forum.

For articles, files, and gallery, I use the RSS feed, but I realise that fewer people nowadays use those, so the Dashboard does seem handy.

Quote from Cassius

I really expect the welcome video (and associated Welcome page) added this past weekend will constitute what most people will check out first. [ Underneath the video it says Click here for Self-Paced Slides of the above presentation, or here for the Welcome Page with the text of the narration. ]

Yes. When I think back, if the only option I'd have had to make first contact with Epicurean Philosophy were a wall of text, I'd have said "Oi, no!" instead of saying "Oinoanda!" If the forums are the hook, it's front page must be the bait, and our monkey brains love going to sponge-mode, being told how things are (rather than having to think for themselves; evolution made geared us towards energy efficiency), plus getting that dopamine trickle from a few pleasingly moving pixels (as in the video). The video is very important to lower the threshold.

Quote from Cassius

regular users definitely should bookmark one of the other pages as the best way to check in on the forum.

I agree.

Quote from Cassius

That "Eye" icon is not really a light-dark toggle

I meant the "Preferred Color Scheme" (which is probably what you called "native dark mode"). I don't think I ever used that eye toggle up there, but what it switches to (statistics about myself) seems kind of…odd. Not sure what the value in that could be.

Quote from Cassius

I am going to go over right now and cajole the developer to see if he will turn that Eyeball into a light-dark toggle in the next theme update.

Now that would be most excellent!

Quote from Cassius

I'll have to practice how to say "Danke"

"Dangke schee!" in Pennsylvania Dutch, "Merssi viumau!" in Alemannic, "Villmools Merci!" in Luxembourgish, and – drum roll! – "Danke schön!" in German. An approximate way to pronounce that would be to say "done-KE Shane", with "done" as in completed, "KE" as in baker, and "Shane" as in as in the George Stevens western. I'm sure the Internet can explain that better than I just did

That works well! I think it is a good idea.

Downside: It has no "dark theme" option (the toggle for light/dark in the menu doesn't do anything), and it isn't handled well by the Dark Reader add-on (the black-to-white gradient in the background stays as-is). If a "dark" color scheme were added to solve that (which could simply use the same dark background as the "Inspire Light Garden" theme), then I'd be persuaded until then I'll stick to "Inspire Light Garden" with Dark Reader.

Both screenshots taken with Dark Reader enabled. Upper: Default theme without welcome box. Lower: "Inspire Light Garden".