Posts by Elayne

Godfrey, well... I was thinking poetically! Thinking about all the creatures in the universe, seeking out pleasure as if in an infinite, eternal dance-- it's so joyful to me to see life that way for all of us.

But yes, it would be interesting to look at actual research on the drive for pleasure in other species! I read a beautiful book on this a few months ago, and IMO the author comes soooo close to our philosophy but misses clearly naming pleasure as the drive. I considered emailing him and then I forgot... maybe worth doing.

Biology of wonder

Godfrey, this definitely resonates with me-- not a being or a consciousness but the various processes of inorganic matter becoming organic and organic matter developing. It reminds me of "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower" D thomas. For myself, I could even make a case for seeing divinity as desire, the drive for pleasure observed in all creatures with sufficient nervous systems to feel.

Bearing in mind our agreed on caveat for this group regarding secondary sources like Philodemus, I question whether this idea of gods _feeling_ congeniality or alienation for us is consistent with the assertion that they are entirely blissful.

In the first place, a _feeling_ of alienation is either a pleasure or a pain, because all feelings in EP are one or the other. Alienation sounds like a pain, something the gods would want to avoid, so if they feel alienation then they are not entirely blissful on a continuous basis and then by definition are not Epicurean Gods. If that is the correct translation-- if he said and meant feeling.

If a being feels congeniality for a human and then that human experiences pain-- let us even say pain impossible to avoid, which Epicurus agreed is a thing-- then to remain entirely and continually blissful, this being could not feel empathetic pain triggered by the pain of the human it feels congenial towards. And what kind of congeniality is that? Certainly not an anthropormorphic congeniality-- not the type of friendship Epicurus describes here in VS 56 "The wise man feels no more pain, when being tortured himself than when his friend is tortured" (which does not mean a wise man feels no pain when being tortured-- that's impossible-- but that the torture of a friend is like his own torture).

Gods who are unable to know how things are going with humans and are amongst their god friends who are not having pain would have no reason to experience empathetic pain. But if we start believing they can have some sort of relational connection with us, and that they have no sorrow at all over our pain, then we could at least say they would be of a very different nature than we are, in a way that we are not encouraged by Epicurus to emulate.

Christians, although many of them do believe their god has sorrow for us, have a mechanism for getting around any god attribute that a member does not understand-- they just have to say it is over their heads and that we can't understand the mind of god. However, nothing in Epicurus' original words implied creatures who would have incomprehensible features-- some behaviors about which we would have to shrug our shoulders and say well who knows, we can't understand gods. Instead, he has made them fairly anthropomorphic in what it would take to cause them pleasure.

This is another reason, besides the material implausibility, that I do not think the original Epicurean description of the gods is compatible with where Philodemus has taken it.

That's an interesting idea... I'm not comfortable arguing a position I disagree with, because I know that at least for me, word choice and tone are influenced by feelings, and to feign feeling for a position I don't like would feel dishonest. I don't enjoy dishonesty and I'm not good at it either, lol.

So someone else may want to do that.

Another option that could have a similar underlying goal would be steel manning-- for members to explain the strongest parts of an opposing argument to the satisfaction of the opponent, in their own words but without pretending to endorse it. Which accomplishes the goal of everyone being sure they know what they are opposing.

JJ, I want to be clear on what I mean about the death penalty issue. I think DeWitt explains that there were no tests of faith for these rituals, just a duty to participate. I'm not saying he lied about anything-- I was just referring specifically to attending the rituals. I think it was brought up as evidence of him having personal religious practices, and I was saying well, that may not be evidence of a religious practice the way we would think of it-- hard to know. I'm an atheist and have attended rituals-- I've been to churches. I don't consider that dishonest!

Susan, I can see how that would feel sad... as a "cradle atheist", my sense of awe never got connected to anything I had to let go of. For me, it's more the awe of existence, that we and the universe are here at all-- it's breathtaking. I hope you can connect to that particular pleasure in a new way. That loss is one of the things I find tragic about religion.

This is the kind of thing that made Epicurus say (to paraphrase) that if we can't agree sugar is sweet, we might as well not talk at all. Mine would be that if we can't agree that some evidence is more reliable than other evidence, there is no point in discussing science. It would be meaningless.

That doesn't mean everyone is going to agree on feelings about the evidence or how much they want to know it. But without some baseline agreement that we are going to communicate about evidence reliability and that there is such a thing as being more or less reliable, there's simply no point in talking about it.

Quote from Cassius

This the the direction that needs exam I agree. How does one articulate "enough" in these issues

Enough is subjective as a sensation, and it also has real world consequences for the person... AND, when a person is talking to other scientists, they should not be surprised to be laughed at if they say "a dream is enough for me" when there is more reliable evidence to the contrary of the dream.

If a person is choosing to rely on evidence that is comparatively less reliable than other evidence, in order to make life decisions, that person is risking their pleasure. Epicurus had no hesitation in labeling people unwise who did not make decisions that were based on reality. If they spent their time worrying about punishment from supernatural gods, for which there is no evidence, that would be an unwise decision for their pleasure.

So in choosing what is enough evidence, I propose that a wise person considers the feelings involved in taking time to learn, how much information is enough to give them feelings of confidence, AND the potential effects of basing decisions on evidence which is comparatively less reliable. Perhaps they will decide to drink a glass of OJ for their cancer because they feel least anxious about that and it doesn't matter to them that it's statistically likely to shorten their life. Or perhaps they will even drink poison which has been shown to kill people, based on a dream that it will not kill them. IDK. These are personal decisions.

How much is "enough" for a person does not change the _actual_ comparative reliability of the evidence in question, and that is an important point to keep in mind. If a person decides it is enough for them to believe in magical flying unicorns, well ok then, and it doesn't mean that we would assess the complete lack of evidence for those unicorns on the same basis as the evidence for existence of trees.

And accepting pragmatic fact differs from the Skeptics, who were obsessed over uncertainty. It's philosophy ocd to be a skeptic.

A way of stating my hypothesis is "most people do not require 100% certainty in order to not worry. Of those who do, no amount of checking will remove the worry (as in OCD)."

Oh, I do think Epicurus would agree with me, if he had access to what I have access to. I think if he knew about pragmatism and "certain enough to use for decisions", he would be fine with that. I don't think stats are a regression unless people don't understand what they are doing. I strongly suspect Epicurus would understand the uses of stats in the way I have outlined.

I think the real underlying question is "what degree of confidence do most people need before they can stop being anxious about other possibilities?" It is a totally different question from "how can we be 100% certain", a question which has the answer "we can't, but our confidence can be strong enough that we can forget about our worry."

A person with OCD can check that the stove is off 100x and still be uncomfortable with uncertainty the instant they leave the room. A typical person will go about their day, maybe checking once. This is a question for human psychology research. You have to do it as an experiment to know what works for people's loss of anxiety.

We have some loose observations about people in predominantly atheist countries-- that they are less anxious. Do all of them understand physics or do they just trust the physicists? Did Epicurus' students all understand him, or was he charismatic?

My working hypothesis is that any explanation must be as reliable as possible for all types of students. Some will believe in science based on credibility assignment alone. Others need to have it explained in a way that makes sense to them, like with Stenger's books. Others need to visit your lab and inspect your equipment. Some will never be able to use their sense observations to modify their conclusions.

As a modern example-- I have a friend who goes to a nun who sexes ginkgo seedings with a pendulum. If it swings one direction, it's male-- another, female. Apparently it's difficult to tell, and a lot of people want to avoid smelly fruit in their yards 😂.

My spontaneous question was "Interesting! What's her success rate?" We have studies showing these pendulum things are like a ouija board-- the pendulum swinger obviously causes the direction. I wondered if the nun was noticing something about the seeds with her "fast brain", her pattern recognition.

My friend looked at me with total confusion and then said "oh! I get it! You are doing science. This is not about that."

And I realized it was the experience she was going for, the sense of believing intuition was correct. She didn't want to submit it to experiment because no amount of data could override her sense of certainty.

Cassius, yes-- that's what I've said-- but it's not arbitrary whether one p value gives more statistical confidence than another. So for someone to say "I'm going to drink OJ for my cancer because I had a dream it will work" is not nearly as likely to yield the desired results of a cure as saying "I'm going to try this treatment which has worked for 95% (or 60% or whatever is the number you can get) with side effects x percent, a risk which is acceptable to me."

If we have many large studies saying OJ has never worked for a single patient, then it would be even more foolish... but if we have studies showing it's no different from chance at the same p value where prune juice is different from chance, then I'd drink the prune juice.

I would avoid making the error of saying that because we can choose the level of confidence, there is no difference between one level of confidence and another, which is like saying a single view of the straw in a water glass is as accurate as making multiple observations.

Is everyone clear on the difference between analogies, making observations before conclusions, and the scientific method, which is a more accurate way of testing observations? It's hard for me to tell from the conversation so far.

Observations would be:

I've observed that on the visible level, everything I see is made of parts, and those particles have various features like being smooth or rough, heavy or light, etc. I haven't seen any exceptions.

Analogy based on observations would be: I've also seen phenomena that could only be explained if these visible particles were composed of particles too small to see. I am concluding that the smallest particles also have features like smooth, rough, different shapes, etc, like the visible ones, and many visible behaviors of matter would make sense to me if that is correct. This is the kind of process we see outlined in Lucretius.

A modern analogy would be: I have tested this drug in mice, which are mammals, and it works, so it will work in humans. Or, I've tested this drug in a bunch of humans and it worked for them so it _will_ work for you. Which many people, including some doctors, think is what we do, but it's really not, lol.

The modern process that I have not seen in Epicurus is: I've made a lot of observations about matter. I have some ideas about how that might be happening-- about the mechanisms and the composition of matter too small to see. I am going to form a specific, falsifiable hypothesis which makes a prediction about how matter will behave under certain circumstances-- how it would behave if my hypothesis is right-- and I'm going to run experiments. I'm going to repeat those experiments many times and see if other scientists can repeat them and get the same results. I'm going to get direct sensory observations by building instruments sensitive enough to register what my eyes can't, as an extension of my senses. I will be using my senses to make direct observations under strictly controlled conditions.

I'll remain aware of possible confounding factors I haven't controlled my experiments for, and I will also do other experiments to test my hypothesis. After multiple different types of evidence have been obtained by multiple people, I will accept the conclusions as factual enough to use. The science definition of fact is pragmatic, neither skeptical nor dogmatic. But once a fact has been repeatedly observed as reliable, very strong evidence would be required to falsify it. For instance, now that we have observed electrical activity in the brain to cause seizures, and even in some case particular genetic mutations resulting in ion channelopathies and seizures, if someone wants to say naw, it's demon possession, they need to produce a demon.

This difference between the simpler observation to conclusion process vs observation to hypothesis to testing process is in the reliability of the conclusions, something which has also held up (that's a sort of meta experiment-- what kind of data collection turns out to be reliable over time).

This is so well established that doing "post hoc" analysis of data collected to test another hypothesis is called derisively the "spaghetti method." This is why it is standard in meta-analysis to exclude post-hoc papers. In the publish or perish world, researchers will mine their data for other patterns. Intuitively it seems that should be fine, but it is notoriously unreliable. Instead, the reliable approach is to take any post hoc observations as a new hypothesis and design tests for it.

Cassius, what you will immediately notice is that there is the issue of exactly how many times and in how many ways results need to be replicated before we are going to accept them as reliable. That is an important issue, and it's where statistics come in. We use things like p values and control groups to tell us how likely it is that our results are to be different from chance. We can choose how certain we want to be about a particular conclusion.

That issue is present always, but the point is that we can compare reliability, not that we can make anything 100% reliable.

For some hypotheses only one counter example is required. For instance, the plane crash. Those are the always/never type hypotheses. But usually in biology, it's more about "will this drug work for more people than not using it, or for more people than a current treatment?"

As far as levels of evidence-- because we are not typically using always/never hypotheses, in medicine we have levels which are not arbitrary but based on how reliable conclusions are from each type of evidence. Some people include expert consensus but I think that's silly-- I would only include the level of evidence they used.

The lowest level of evidence in medicine is the kind that is historically least likely to be correct. For example, if one person given orange juice recovers from flu. We don't have enough data to decide if that is different from chance. But a single case is sometimes enough to be attention grabbing. What if we give someone OJ for a disease no one is known to have survived, and they survive? It's a hypothesis worth testing, but since OJ itself isn't known to be risky unless you are allergic, there would be a low threshold for using it before any controlled study-- and depending on how that went, you might decide it is unethical to design a higher level of evidence study.

Case series are the next level, more reliable than one case. And so on up to double blinded, randomized, controlled studies with replication _and_ a documented mechanism of action.

So when we are looking at the conclusions, it is not consensus whether a level of evidence is more reliable than another. That's something we have directly observed by comparing methods. That's the case even though sometimes a single case will turn out to be reliable but a large study turn out to have unexpected confounding variables.

This is what lets us say with confidence things like "there is a plausible mechanism for seizures that does not involve demons, so we are going to disregard your demon idea unless you produce evidence" or "there are plausible mechanisms for the repeated observations we've made about the neuroscience of dreams which do not require a missing element of some particle or energy transmission from outer space penetrating the skull, and furthermore, we have evidence that people often erroneously perceive agency where none exists upon closer examination, so we are going to disregard that idea unless you can produce evidence stronger (more replicable) than what we have so far."

As far as analogy having been a stopping place back then, I should qualify that by saying sometimes it was. Definitely there were very detailed observations also. But sometimes, at least in Lucretius, analogy is used to assert a conclusion, and we've seen that many of those details concluded from only analogy were incorrect. I would use analogy as a hypothesis generator though.

So far I have not seen a clear example of Epicurus testing a hypothesis by making a prediction and then seeing if experimental observations fit. If he did, that would be amazing, but I think that method came about much later.

Quote from Cassius

I think that's really the issue here, that of grasping a workable understanding of the issues involved that can be understood by a normal person and applied in real life -- because if all we come up with is a hugely complicated formula with a lot of variables, our result isn't usable in real life, and we are left back with a "faith" issue of how to pick those scientists whose methods we don't understand, but whom we decide to trust.

I think a quote commonly attributed to Einstein but which has an unknown source is relevant: everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Part of our difficulty showing modern humans that the universe is material is that so many people lack adequate science and math education. To get the evidence they need, now that we know more, people are going to need to put in some effort. Fortunately, there are many excellent popular physics books out there, very readable, such as Vic Stenger's work.

To try and reassure people with explanations we know are outdated and not accurate is a bad idea, because it erodes trust and leaves them with no good arguments against supernaturalists. Giving people reassuring sounding but incorrect information is no better than false religion. It leaves them open to believing in things like ESP type images of gods and so on.

People who are not able or willing to learn some physics are likely not going to be able to withstand supernaturalists anyway, I suspect, because a savvy supernaturalist can give arguments against the outdated details in Epicurean philosophy and cause the person to lose confidence. But that is a hypothesis which could be tested-- what approach provides the most resistance to supernatural fears and to further incorrect ideas about material reality? What inoculates people against woo that could backfire on their pleasure? That's a social science question to study-- not something to guess at with logic. Sometimes the answers to that kind of question are surprising!

"As long as the differences are uniform" is a critical clause. A single exception _can_ disprove a general hypothesis in some cases. It depends on the hypothesis, and on whether the exception is predictable/uniform. A single exception, if a clear mechanism can be found which has already been validated, could be called predictable.

For example, if the hypothesis is "Boeing jets never crash", one crash which can be clearly demonstrated by the black box to be owing to a mechanical failure known to reliably cause crashes, perhaps with evidence of a coverup, would be enough to disprove that general statement. We would have to change it to "they rarely crash."

The original hypothesis then must be modified to "x thing always happens except under y condition." Exceptions give us useful information, and they do require refinement of an initial "always" hypothesis.

If an exception is not predictable or explained yet, it can be held in reserve in case it isn't really an exception-- maybe something happened to make the original conditions different from the stated hypothesis, etc. An example would be if the black box can't be found or doesn't show an obvious problem, or it shows something that hasn't caused crashes before and investigators aren't sure if it crashed or was shot down, or maybe it was a counterfeit plane, etc.

*** One general rule being brought down by an exception does not mean all general rules will be-- only if exceptions were uniform would that be the case.

So far this looks to me like part of the history of science. Although reasoning by analogy was a stopping point then, continued observations of nature have taught us analogy is insufficient. It can generate hypotheses which then are tested. Testing of hypotheses-- making predictions based on a hypothesis and observing the results-- had not been discovered yet. Still, it's a direct descendant of the insistence Epicurus had on making observations directly, so I think it falls into the category of a detail that requires refinement but still consistent with the high level view.

This is the kind of thing I am talking about. There is strong data about Hyperactive Agency Detection in humans-- it's not something I made up. It means we have sense evidence that we assign agency where there is none, and to ignore that tendency is likely to lead us to accept conclusions about mental experiences that are false. False conclusions could in turn contribute to life choices not conducive to pleasure. If accuracy of conclusions didn't affect pleasure, the accuracy wouldn't matter, because mattering is the province of feeling.

So how do we accept any kind of prolepsis as true? We don't, in isolation. We accept it when it's in accord with the senses or at least does not contradict them. In this case, we have sense data that this particular type of mental experience can cause false opinions, we would be especially wary about those specific prolepses. So I think questioning those experiences is entirely Epicurean. Not cause for saying we are abandoning the philosophy in some way.

Quote from Susan

Quote

...but you suggested that we are hard-wired for animism in a way that deludes us about the existence or nature of gods, so how could you then accept any kind of prolepsis as conveying true information?

Cassius, I think the original writing leaves room for multiple interpretations, which is actually why I prefer the Greek lest our translations inadvertently close off interpretations prematurely.

I think it's ok to leave interpretations open IF we agree not to assume they are infallible, whatever they are, so that if one of us describes something we are calling a prolepsis, we agree it can be evaluated in context of all the senses.

I propose that we need some procedural agreements when evaluating the texts on statements about the gods. My suggestions are:

1) Epicurus' own words take precedence over all other source material. Anywhere Epicurus leaves room for different interpretations is not narrowed down by commentary from other sources, such as Philodemus or DeWitt. Neither will individual quotes be taken out of context with his whole body of work.

2) The process of determining what is real takes precedence over details of prior or current conclusions. When new data is available that Epicurus didn't have, we agree to present both what he concluded based on information available to him _and_ revisions which are necessary to continue adhering to his process of observing nature and trusting the senses. We agree that such revisions are an embedded expectation in a philosophy based on observations of nature, and that to ignore new data is to distort Epicurus' intentions beyond recognition.

3) Prolepses are subject to the same verification process as any other sense data and are not to be given special status when the combined sense evidence contradicts them, no matter how compelling they are. We will not say prolepses are infallible when the content is in the form of a conclusion about reality. This is the same as we do not say a straw in a glass of water is bent because it looks to be so from one view. Instead, we examine it from different positions and touch it. We combine our senses to test any conclusion. A sensation about gods from an intuition or dream is not a mistake in the same way seeing an optical illusion is not a mistake, but assumptions about the _cause_ of those intuitions and dreams is a matter up for verification by the other senses. We must especially beware of making assertions of material fact on grounds that we received special knowledge due to a prepared mind, because this closes off the importance of examination by the senses.

One more thought-- a philosophy that puts so much emphasis on observation of nature could never be expected to keep the exact details of how things work the same. Change in those details is embedded in the origin of the project.

This is not neo-Epicurean, because that would mean things like deciding virtue is absolute, without evidence, or that Epicurus wasn't really talking about pleasure, etc. Nothing about re-examining the prolepses is neo, because we are probing nature, as Epicurus did. It reminds me of Lucretius talking about him fearlessly penetrating what nature hides. If we think that need for fearless probing of nature, including our own brains, was a one and done deal, we'd be wrong.