Posts by Godfrey

  • Is All Desire Painful? How Would Epicurus Answer?

    Is desire really only a function of the mind? Isn't it often physical... maybe even primarily physical? It ultimately has to be as everything is physical, even the mind.

    One thing that's important, per my understanding of Epicurus, is to not conflate desires with pleasures. I interpret this, rightly or wrongly, as desires are not feelings and therefore not pains. Pleasure/pain is one biological function, desire is another.

    I also think that it would be instructive to review modern biochemistry in this regard; it may or may not clarify Epicurus, but we have more information than he did and so it's worth reviewing the ideas from a contemporary standpoint. It's of note that our contemporary standpoint often validates Epicurus' thinking to a large degree, which is one reason why I for one find EP so appealing.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    I'm a bit late but, to me, practical v philosophical isn't a useful distinction as they are ideally one in the same for an Epicurist. Maybe surface v in depth, dilettante v serious student or something along those lines provides a better comparison?

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    I can't help but speculate that the formulation of the categories of desires is a reaction against asceticism and a defense against the enemies of pleasure. To me the categories are an improvement upon the philosophies that seek removal of all desires, which could be the very definition of asceticism.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    Not sure if this is helpful but, for me, natural/unnecessary desires are the "sweet spot" of living as an Epicurean.

    At some point a person has reasoned through what is unnatural for them and ruled those things out for themself as something to pursue. Similarly, at some point a person has (hopefully) secured their natural and necessary desires for the foreseeable future. The natural/unnecessary desires, then, are everything that's left, and these are the desires that we work with every day. Do I want to do something extravagant, just for the fun of it? This is a practical opportunity to examine my desire and evaluate how it might affect me in terms of pleasure/pain. Am I embarking on a large project? Say, perhaps, a home remodel. How can I maximize my pleasure in this instance, both in terms of the experience and the outcome. Am I deciding between two jobs? Do I want wine with dinner? Paper or plastic?

    As Epicureans (or Epicurists) we don't just set up our lives and proceed on autopilot. And working with natural/unnecessary desires is one way to intentionally live day to day with the philosophy to consistently and responsibly maximize our pleasure.

  • Did Epicurus Commit Suicide Due To His Disease? (Merger of Two Threads On When Voluntary Death Makes Sense)

    I'm asking this in complete ignorance on the subject, but is it possible that ancient Greek wine was made through a different process than today's French and California wines? Some type of extremely strong retsina? Something that needed water mixed in just to be palatable as well as safe to drink?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_G…fore%20pressing.

    https://www.badancient.com/claims/ancient…oman%20cultures.

    https://greekreporter.com/2022/05/09/why-ancient-greeks-mixed-wine-with-seawater/

  • Image Sharing Alternatives

    Cleaner, Faster, Greener: Rethinking How We Build Websites
    Every website we visit carries a carbon footprint, but visionary designers have been rethinking how they can be built and optimized for greater sustainability.
    unframed.lacma.org

    I just ran across this article, which is interesting but probably only peripherally pertinent. Haven't made it to the exhibition, so I'm not aware of its focus. It does have a catalog, though, for any digital design geeks 🤓 :/:)

  • The Use of Negation in Epicurean Philosophy Concepts

    For me, a way that is is much more useful than kinetic-katastematic in thinking about various pleasures is in terms of intensity, duration and location. This can be found in the PDs, although not without some effort. Another practical way to examine particular pleasures and pains is to look at whether you can expect them to result in net pleasure or net pain, and act accordingly.

  • The Use of Negation in Epicurean Philosophy Concepts

    Quote from Cassius

    And he didn't say "Ever since I was 50 and reached a complete understanding of my philosophy I have never felt any pain" or anything like that. He acknowledged his pain but held that his pleasures far outweighed them and that he was happy to be alive to experience that day.

    It's been some time since I read Gosling and Taylor, but if I recall correctly, they consider the understanding of philosophy to be something of a one-and-done pleasure and they call it katastematic. But as you say, that by no means implies an end of pain. Pains and pleasures still come and go (for some reason an image of swirling around comes to mind) but the stable pleasure of correct philosophy can outweigh most, if not all, of the pains.

  • Personal mottos?

    A motto refers to a guiding principle, whereas a slogan is more of a pithy phrase, although it, too, can reference a guiding principle.

    Don't overthink it. Do less than you want to. Approach practice as indulgence instead of work. Choose what is self-reinforcing. Old age is not for the faint of heart... These are some of my current favorites; I find them useful based on circumstances, but to others they may certainly be trite or even meaningless. Basically I use them as pointers. And sometimes they just make me chuckle.

  • Personal mottos?

    Personally, I'm using "slogans" these days. Many of the best ones are ones that I just make up to fit my current situation, some aren't Epicurean but are compatible with the philosophy, depending on what I keep in mind when thinking about them. I put one on the home screen of my phone and think about it throughout the day. Then after a couple of days I switch to another one.

    A model for this is the Buddhist lojong slogans. Depending on the translations, some of those are applicable. Of course, those refer back to Buddhist concepts, but I just happily bastardize them to my own ends.

  • "Absence Of Pain Is Pleasure" - How Would You Articulate That To Someone?

    PD09: If every pleasure were condensed and were present at the same time and in the whole of one's nature or its primary parts, then the pleasures would never differ from one another.

    Pleasure can be examined in terms of intensity, location and duration. If you really look at your present experience at any time, you may find that you're happy even though you just stubbed your toe. Or that your toe feels intense pain, but your belly is pleasantly full. As to mental pleasures of the bittersweet variety, I think of them as comparable to multitasking. Current neuroscience (to my understanding) has found that multitasking is in actuality just rapid task switching. In the same way, I would posit that bittersweet is actually bitterthensweetthenbitterthensweetetcetc. The pleasant memory prompts the pain of loss, which might then be replaced by a pleasant memory and so on. Or a pleasant memory may prompt the pain of loss, and the pain of loss lingers. Or vice versa.

    An experiment that I occasionally do is when I feel like I'm in a neutral state, I try to really examine how I'm feeling. I always find that I'm experiencing pleasure and/or pain: it's just that the intensity may be very low, or a pleasure somewhere is offsetting a pain elsewhere. We are constantly experiencing pleasure/pain, both as a complete organism and in our various parts. Some of these concepts need to be felt as well as reasoned out, which is part of the point of the Epicurean canonic.

  • The “Absence of Pain” Problem

    As to the physical pleasure of not stubbing your toe... Physically, not stubbing your toe is a non-event, since it didn't happen. Assuming that you have no other pain in your toe, your toe would have an absence of pain and thus pleasure.

    Speaking as a man of a certain age, if my whole body had no physical pains, I would be in a state of great pleasure!

  • Must an Epicurean believe in gods?

    Quote from Cassius

    While it's a certainty in Epicurean philosophy that there is life elsewhere in the infinite and eternal universe, and it seems likewise a certainty that we as humans are the best and the brightest,

    Cassius did you mean to say "we as humans are not the best and the brightest"? That would be my understanding....

  • Must an Epicurean believe in gods?

    Well that's quite the juicy question, and a subject of debate since long before this forum! We have several threads on this very topic, but here's an overly brief synopsis:

    The academics have basically divided into two camps on this subject, while I and I think some others have a hybrid view. One view is the realist view, which is that the gods exist (or at least Epicurus believed they exist) as he has described them. The other view is the idealist view, which is that the gods are an ideal culmination of Epicurean philosophy, and an ideal to strive for even though they don't exist.

    Some things to examine:

    - Epicurus has described the gods as material, in a way that follows the overall logic of his materialism. This can be compared to his description of sight, of memory and of other phenomena in terms of atoms and void and nothing supernatural.

    - My knowledge of the culture of Athens of his day is sketchy, but I also think that he saw some value in festivals and worship, as long as one kept in mind that there is nothing supernatural. There are various pleasures to be had in celebration and in being part of a community, and I think that he wanted to make use of these.

    - Then there's the fact that science has advanced in the last 2300 years. Epicurus was a philosopher, not a scientist. Much of his thinking was remarkably prescient, but we also have far more information than he had access to. So, on the one hand we need to consider his ideas in light of modern science. But on the other hand we need to do our best to follow his reasoning and motivations, which is extremely difficult given the limited quantity of his extant texts.