Friendship reduces stress and prolongs life
Science proves Epicureans to be right about the immense value of friendship: some baboons groom their buddies for long lives.
Female chacma baboons that maintain close, lasting friendships live considerably longer than their peers who switch companions more frequently, a new study finds in ScienceNews
Epicureanism is more like science than religion
“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” said Stephen Hawking in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News.
Hawking used the words “because it works”, rather than “because it is true”. Determination of “truth” in any other way would require an ultimate authority, and ultimate authority is religion’s game.
In this context Epicureanism is more like science than religion: it did work for the decent, rational and reasonable middle class of the Roman Empire for 800 years just as well as it does for us today.
Epicurean solutions for our burning problems – Prof. Hossenfelder’s views (3): how science can produce more happiness
Malte Hossenfelder sees Epicurus’s topicality also in the Epicurean approach to science. For Epicurus science was a tool to achieve happiness directly through stress-FREEDOM: the role of science was to liberate the stressFREEDOM seekers from irrational fears and at the same time to furnish knowledge directly relevant to live a happy life.
We use science to subdue and overexploit nature, to produce unnecessary products and awake a sense of greed for these products in the belief that all this process will lead us finally indirectly to happiness.
Taking the direct way would be more efficient for us and more sustainable for nature’s resources. The Epicurean approach results in a faith in nature’s laws that work independently of our wishes and desires and therefore we needn’t care or worry about them, even if some of our theories prove to be false. “How could be a man disturbed by a failure, if he’s free from ambition and fears neither death nor pains?” states Hossenfelder.
Hossenfelder doesn’t say this but any Epicurean (and many others) would agree to it: science should primarily do the following:
- develop ways for producing more food with less effort
- develop more efficient medicines with less side effects
- develop better housing solutions for more people
and communicate its accomplishments in such a way that food-, health- and housing-specialists can apply the findings.
Epicurean solutions for our burning problems – Prof. Hossenfelder’s views (1)
Malte Hossenfelder is one of the few professional philosophers who had the courage to tackle and understand and explain convincingly Epicurus’s SUBdivision of necessary and natural desires (the “non-professional” - in the sense of amateur in the sense of making a living from something else – philosophers having tackled this successfully are Victor Kioulaphides and Tome Merle in the Epicurean Group on Yahoo).
Beyond a good understanding of Epicurus’s philosphy Hossenfelder expresses his conviction that the Epicureay Way of living has a high topicality for all of us today. He sees Epicurus’s topicality in the 21st century in five fields.
As his book on Epicurus (Epikur, Verlag C.H. Beck, 1998, München) is available only in German as far as I know, I will summarize here his recommendations.
- The role of needs-based economy in producing happiness
- The role of science in producing happiness
- The role of autarky in producing happiness
- The immediate and direct availability of happiness
- The role of philosophy in forming ethical norms and defining a lifestyle
I will shortly present each of these domains in the next days.
You may get more information in German on Professor Hossenfelder here:
http://www.uni-graz.at/malte.hossenfelder/site.php?show=1
if you want to get happy: practice it!
“Melete to pan” “μελέτη τὸ πᾶν” — “Pains and industry effect every thing” spoken 2600 years ago, by Periander one of the seven wise men of Greece meaning: Persevering industry can achieve all things that are not utterly impossible.
If you want to get good at football: you have to practice.
If you want to get good at stress-FREEDOM: you have to practice.
If you want to get good at happiness: you have to practice.
Epicurus knew this 2300 years ago:
Practice these teachings daily and nightly. Study them on your own or in the company of a like-minded friend, and you shall not be disturbed while awake or asleep. You shall live like a god among men, because one whose life is fortified by immortal blessings in no way resembles a mortal being. (From ‘Letter to Menoeceus’ by Epicurus)
His followers kept on practicing stress-FREEDOM in their circles of friends for 800 years!
Modern science has proved they were right:
“To live wisely requires the ability to perceive, guide and foresee our emotions. Feelings of happiness aren’t a coincidence but the consequence of right thoughts and actions–a concept which modern neuroscience, ancient philosophy, and Buddhism…all agree.
We in the West typically emphasize the value of the correct decision: if only we were to make the right choice at this or that fork in the road, everything would improve. But according to the traditions of Buddhism and the philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome, it is more important to anchor ourselves in good habits, because these form the mind. We should want to change ourselves rather than our circumstances. The rest will come, because with a mind that is prepared for happiness, we will automatically seek out those situations that make us happy.
The importance each of us gives to the conscious choice is in the end a matter of faith. But two things are certain. First, our sense of happiness depends much more on the ways in which the brain perceives than on external circumstances; and second, occasional efforts aren’t sufficient to change our ways of perceiving. If the brain is to be rewired, repetition and habit are indispensible. And they, in turn, depend on a willingness to make an effort.
People are willing to go to great lengths when it concerns status, career, or their children’s development. But when it concerns happiness in everyday life, they can be oddly stingy with their energy. And yet, the way to happiness is quite straight forward: ‘The actual secrets of the path to happiness are determination, effort, and time,’ explains the Dalai Lama.
To this science can only assent.”
(From ‘The Science of Happiness’ by Stefan Klein)
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