Hacker News Reader

Comment by afunk | Hacker News Reader

From a fun book I have “Philosophy in 40 Ideas”

Eudaimonia THIS IS AN ANCIENT GREEK WORD, normally translated as 'fulfilment', particularly emphasised by the philosopher Aristotle. It deserves wider currency because it corrects the shortfalls in one of the most central terms in our contemporary idiom: happiness. The Ancient Greeks resolutely did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy; they proposed that it was to be fulfilled. What distinguishes happiness from fulfilment is pain. It is eminently possible to be fulfilled and, at the same time, under pressure, suffering physically or mentally, overburdened and in a tetchy mood. Many of life's most worthwhile projects will, at points, be quite at odds with contentment, but may be worth pursuing nevertheless. Henceforth, we shouldn't try to be happy; we should accept the greater realism, ambition and patience that accompanies the quest for eudaimonia.

View on HN

I fully agree with you but I do think many people are just speaking generally when they talk about wanting to live a happy life.

Obviously one should not always be happy. You shouldn't be happy at a funeral. You should also have cause to go to a funeral (having friends, family, etc.). You should also do things you might hate or cause pain because long term they are good. Studying, running, etc. Life if full of these struggles and they are good.

But there is also a common hedonistic misunderstanding where people seek pleasure, avoid pain, and think it will lead to happiness, or fulfillment, or however you want to characterize a "good" life. I see this a lot in the "self-care" advocates who justify unhealthy behavior by positioning it as championing some self-diagnosed mental health cause. It often looks like "I'm going to ignore my responsibilities because I feel bad and people shouldn't question me because I am the full authority on anything I categorize as my mental health."

> You shouldn't be happy at a funeral

Shouldn't I? I suspect you're just unthinkingly exporting cultural expectations you've absorbed. I don't believe all cultures treat funerals as necessarily sad occasions, and I really don't like being told what I should feel by someone else (although I realise you probably didn't mean it that way).

(small edit)

Good observation. As someone raised in a Catholic country, I am still weirded out by the Protestant idea to get together after a funeral to mourn, mingle and eat. (I'm not even sure what you call that)

In my mind mourning is a very private and too sad an event to have people around, and there is bound to be cultures where mourning is cause to celebrate, have fun, and enjoy life in all of its beauty.

That's interesting.

I was born and raised in Poland, a Catholic country, and we do gather after the funeral to mourn and eat together. However, apparently this custom dates back to Slavic times – this may explain the difference between our experiences.

And I'm from Italy. Perhaps it's not a religious difference, but just cultural.

In English, the social event of mourning with others often with food, drink and sometimes even song, is often called a “wake”.

The "Irish Wake" is this... but _before_ the funeral.

And Ireland is VERY Catholic.

Surely happiness is not continuous feeling of bliss and joy.

For example parenthood can be a large collection of frustration and exhaustion, and still be one of the most powerful gate to happiness.

It's important that we cultivate a language of words with more precise meanings rather than always trying to interpolate what the writer meant using their context.

A better language and a better society has a more sophisticated set of words to communicate with.

And a similar word:

"In Ancient Greek philosophy, ataraxia (Greek: ἀταραξία, from "a-", negation and tarachē "disturbance, trouble") is a lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. In non-philosophical usage, ataraxia was the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle. Achieving ataraxia is a common goal for Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism, but the role and value of ataraxia within each philosophy varies in accordance with their philosophical theories."

So that's why the anti-anxiety drug is called Atarax.

Permit me to quote the article you’re commenting on.

> 10. Ataraxia (Greek: ἀταραξία) > Ataraxia literally translates as “unperturbedness”, but is generally considered as “imperturbability”, “equanimity”, or “tranquillity”.

> The Ancient Greeks resolutely did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy

I bet Ancient Greeks didn't constitute a hivemind and had different opinions on the matter.

Yes, but it is also accurate to say "Americans believe in individualism" even though they aren't a hivemind either. It's short for "X is a cultural value of theirs".

+1 In fact there were many different schools of thought back there both within Athens and across city states. For me, learning about the vibrant debates between them was one of the most fun parts of studying Ancient Greece.

Manolis Kellis discussed similar concepts on the Lex Fridman podcast. He mentions the idea that the West is very big on resolution and 'happily ever after', whereas the Greeks have a taste for all emotions and experiences in their film, song and poetry.

It's discussed in the Life sucks sometimes and it's okay section of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t06rkOOUa7g#t=1h13m

> suffering physically or mentally, overburdened and in a tetchy mood. Many of life's most worthwhile projects will, at points, be quite at odds with contentment, but may be worth pursuing nevertheless. Henceforth, we shouldn't try to be happy

It's a non-sequitur if I've ever seen one. Although I agree with the idea, it's a disservice to present it with "There's a fancy word which means [...] Henceforth, you should do as I say."

Eudaimonia means “good demons.” Plato used it to refer to the source of Socrates’ inspiration. Etymology of daimon might have it mean the apportioners, dividers or rationers.

“With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon” — Elon Musk

Let’s hope for good demons! I’ve been thinking about it lately, and in a world that many believe is filled with intelligence and consciousness at different levels, it might make sense to dust off our Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy. There are a lot of intriguing ideas there, like the immaterial world of forms.

I know that many people reactively disbelieve in immaterialism—but it is a quite common perspective among physicists. There, most probably agree that the basis of the world is not material stuff, but rather immaterial mathematics.

Just don’t anthropomorphize the daimonia. Human consciousness and intelligence clearly isn’t the only type of intelligence or consciousness in this world.

If you are interested in the intersection of the esoteric and AI, I’ll be giving a lecture June 1 at the Ritman Library of Hermetic Philosophy in Amsterdam. I just got tenure so I’ll be trying to push the envelope :) https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/plan-your-visit/agenda#D...

The Ancient Greek word "daimon" doesn't mean "demon".

Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: δαίμων, "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The word is derived from Proto-Indo-European daimon "provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)," from the root da- "to divide".

-- Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon)

The sorts of beings modern English refers to as "demons" are* daimons, but so are "guardian angels" and "saints".

> During the event, we introduce a version of GPT that has been trained on the complete works of Plato and other esoteric texts, and invite attendees to ask deep questions of Plato. Our AI generates new dialogues in response, offering a unique opportunity to explore the value of dialectic between AI and esoteric philosophy.

That is brilliant. It's so refreshing to hear of Neoplatonism and Hermetic Philosophy, not just for historical study but as a living stream of thought and inspiration. People seem to forget that the roots of science is magic.

Mathematics (can) model reality, not the other way around. I have immense respect for the humanities but your lecture looks like a lazy attempt to ride the AI hype.

Reality models mathematics! That’s a great way to put it. That’s why there are no perfect spheres in a material world—yet billions of material entities teleologically approximating spheres. Clearly the ideal sphere is ontologically prior to any specific material approximation.

You have immense respect for the humanities—but will casually call me a lazy hype monger? Pity.

This was also the name of the awesome downtown Berkeley gaming store that recently closed down.

RIP

No.

I think happy and fulfilled are more or less interchangeable. If you ask Google to define happy, it comes back with a definition from Oxford Languages (at least for me it does) and the definitions given are:

    1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment
    2. having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with
    3. fortunate and convenient

Contentment, satisfaction, convenient... these sound a lot like fulfilled to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com