Any personal meanings we create in life are all neutral as they all come from the exact same functions of our brains that create nothing but neutral words, sounds, images, etc. For example, create any sound, letter, image, etc. in your mind that provokes no emotional response and is bland to you. Therefore, all other meanings we create in life are the same in that sense because, again, they are all the same functioning in our brains. So that makes our own created meanings all neutral as well. These created meanings are no different than the creation of neutral words, sounds, images, etc. because there is no difference between any personal meanings we create in life as opposed to neutral words, sounds, images, etc. because they are the exact same things. Our personal meanings we create in life may make us do good things in life, but they are all still neutral anyway. Only our pleasure itself that arises from any personal meanings we create in life is good (positive) and is the only thing that makes our lives good and worth living and you would be delusional to somehow think that, without your ability to experience pleasure, that your life is still somehow good and worth living. Also, pleasure, in of itself, is a good experience and we do not need any created meanings in life (which would be knowledge, thoughts, etc.) to tell us that it is good. So if you were happy, but had no knowledge or thoughts whatsoever, your happiness would still feel good to you despite the fact that you are completely unaware of what happiness is and the fact that you are unaware of the word “good” and what it even means. Therefore, any created meanings in life by themselves do not tell us that anything is good (they are not the activating of the pleasure centers of our brains which is the only thing that gives us the “good” signal). The same thing goes for depression. Depression in of itself is a bad experience and we do not need any knowledge or thoughts to tell us that it is bad. Therefore, even everything else in life and even your own attitude is neutral and you are free to harm and take advantage of others as long as it gives you the most pleasure in life. However, I would never harm others despite my own personal beliefs because this is not who I am at all.
Therefore, even everything else in life and even your own attitude is neutral and you are free to harm and take advantage of others as long as it gives you the most pleasure in life. However, I would never harm others despite my own personal beliefs because this is not who I am at all. Also, you are not in the minds of other people anyway. So it’s only your own pleasure in life that makes your life good and worth living. Not you helping others and giving them pleasure despite your own absence of pleasure. Finally, the only difference between a thought and such that has meaning to us as opposed to one that doesn’t (one that is neutral) would just be the fact that with one meaning, you are experiencing emotion while with another you are not. So it’s only our emotions themselves that have the meaning of “good” or “bad.” As in terms of one thought that has meaning to us as opposed to another that doesn’t, the only difference between these two thoughts is that one sends an emotional signal to the brain while the other doesn’t–that is all.
Eating is a pleasure. You can eat and eat, and this is good because you enjoy it. Even when the practice has negative effects on your health still you eat and eat and enjoy the food.
I think I am of a similar position, but only think because I don’t know if I understand your meaning here:
The fact that life is not entirely good (or bad), and exists in time and must be volitionally navigated makes it necessary that we do have created meanings and knowledge of good and bad. The reason for this is pointed to by Lev:
Eating and heroin might be pleasurable experiences in themselves, but eating too much can lead to a number of unpleasurable experiences — over-fullness, obesity, and heroin can cause severe addiction which inhibits our relations to other pleasurable activities and withdrawl symptoms which are pattently unpleasurable, so we need to distinguish between effects, as well as practice foresight so as to avoid unpleasurable experiences and experience pleasurable ones.
For that reason I’m not sure what point you were trying to make by saying that we do not need meaning to understand the good as good, which is intuitive in itself, but not intuitive in terms of the way life is actually lived, and it is because we live in time that we create meaning.
I understand and I agree with you in that, although I would say that what you are referring to as “not always “good”” is experiences which are unpleasurable, so in that sense saying pleasure is not always good does not perfectly hit the mark, because obesity is unpleasurable, and so is heroin withdrawl, and so it is the distinguishing between the two (pleasure and displeasure) through meaning that we are able to make decisions and navigate the world.
Life isn’t all about pleasure… Have to go through the discomfort to reach the pleasures you so desire most often. So technically, life is about facing discomfort to bring you pleasure, of which sometimes it might not.
Good point, it really depends on what is meant by “life is about…” What does it mean for life to be about something? If it is understood in the way that we ask “what is that book about” (for example), meaning, what are the main themes or events contained in them, then yes you’re right… life is not ‘about’ pleasure.
If we understand the question “what is life about?” in terms of what to people strive for, as in the question “what’s it all about?” (sort of like, what’s the point?) then I might be more inclined to veer towards pleasure as the answer to that question — which is controversially calling into question the possibility of a ‘higher meaning’… the “point” in that case would be pleasure due to an assumption of a lack of greater meaning in existence.
For a discussion of ‘what life is about’ to be meaningfully conducted, it must first be made clear what those terms are addressing.
No, you are missing the point. The point is that despite obesity being “not-good”, eating is still a pleasure. The state of obesity, per se is neither pleasurable or not. Being a condition and not an act does not make it a pleasure or not.
And regardless of withdrawl symptoms, taking heroin is still a pleasure.
If obesity was not something unpleasurable, or the effects of obesity, then what reason would we have for avoiding it?
And regardless of the withdrawl symptoms, heroin is a pleasure, agreed, but it is because of the withdrawl symptoms and the negative effects of addiction that we avoid it — it is because of what is unpleasurable that we avoid the thing. So I don’t see how I’m missing the point, I’m just saying the point does not cover the issue entirely.
We’re here to pass down information by genes/children through time the measurement of change. We’re to advance.
Facing discomfort to achieve said information/knowledge is how it has been most often done. Discomfort because people are usually afraid of the unknown. There is no new without going into the unknown to grab it.
Our advancement in a positive way or method will open up many new paths and experiences. Since we are the universe experiencing itself subjectively and individually I would say we should push for newer experiences/paths which come from new discovery/unknown.
I take it you are proposing this as a purpose for existing? If that is so, then by passing down genes and having children you mean continuing to exist (not ending the bloodline). But that would mean that the purpose of existing is to continue existing?
I would ask who or what gives us a purpose. I don’t think there is any higher power which imbues us with that purpose, so it is ourselves who decide it. Would we want to continue existing if our experience was entirely without pleasure, and particularly if it was devoid of pleasure but filled with its opposite, displeasure?
Many people have children unconsciously because they desire the pleasure of sex. Others make a family because they feel joy (a sensation of pleasure) at having a family to love and care for.
What are we advancing to?
When we strive to aquire knowledge and information, is it not to make life better for ourselves (increase pleasure)? In this case, facing discomfort (or displeasure) for the sake of pleasure would not be out of the realms of what I had suggested, that we make meanings of pleasure and displeasure so we can make decisions. Part of the decision making process is weighing pleasure against displeasure to see which is worth it. If the sacrifice of displeasure (stepping into the unknown) is less than the pleasure to be received from making new discoveries, then it makes senses to make that decision.
When you say “Our advancement in a positive way or method will open up many new paths and experiences.”, by “new paths and experiences”, do you mean experiences that are pleasurable, unpleasurable, or neither pleasurable or unpleasurable?
When we make scientific discoveries, do we experience pleasure from the knowledge of the discovery (at least in the case of those concerned with the discovery)?
Our pleasure is deeply intertwined with survival, or the acts that lead to our survival. This makes sense if we consider that the primary pressure that shaped us was a hostile environment that constantly threatened death and extinction.
Those that valued acts that led to their survival are more likely to engage in such acts. Thus, we’re a species that is well adapted to survival, and that’s about it.
Beyond the bias of the living, it’s not good or bad to survive. The universe didn’t condemn the extinct - there wasn’t a declaration that the extinct are wrong, or that the living are right. It’s all just a product of past conditions - the natural unfolding of events.
Our feelings aren’t founded in any great truth. Anything that runs contrary to them isn’t fundamentally mistaken or insincere. Yet it’s all real to us, and that’s enough.
We’re social creatures, and it’s healthy to value the welfare of others - to undermine others generally causes displeasure.
We’ve many conflicting drives, and we can’t satisfy all of them fully. We can find balance and compromise, or just throw ourselves fully towards one and fall over ourselves.
Different meanings might make you do good or bad deeds, but they are all still the same anyway in that they are all neutral. Even if this knowledge is used to help and benefit our lives and society and/or to even obtain more pleasure, that still does not change the fact that our thoughts, meanings, and knowledge, etc. are all neutral since I have just already explained why that is in terms of science. Also, I do not even care if your pleasure is detrimental to you and only brings you and/or others harm. Your pleasure is still good in of itself no matter what and everything else in life is nothing in comparison to it.
But the end goal in the above case IS the pleasure, isn’t it, Artimas? The facing of discomfort is more or less the by-product of that.
So, the question has to be asked: Is it worth the sacrifice?
What a mountain climber has to endure to get to the top of the mountain is less important than his getting to the top of that mountain. His main focus is not on what he has to endure or on pleasure but what he will achieve that is more meaningful to him.
We all have to ask ourselves “what is life about”. It’s different for different people. For some it’s just plain existence and getting by, for some it’s pleasure and hedonism, for some it’s about inspiration and qualia, for some its about bringing others into this world, for some its about hatred and destruction.
A lot of wise men don’t get the pleasure, not as the majority of man kind does. Humanity abuses what wise men bring them, while wise men most often suffer the entire time, while it is being created or discovered.
If life was all about pleasure, wise men would not exist.
Genius is 98% hard work.
Hard work is not “pleasure”, it’s rather a “privilege”.
Hell, if I placed a wise man and a person who lives for pleasure on a remote island, I guarantee you the wise men will live content while the person of pleasure goes mad.
Therefore pleasure is a distraction, an abuse and a poisonous practice that halts your brain’s “true potential”. Take away the “pleasure”, in turn you take away the “opium”.
Grand human potential is gained when you make sacrifices - pleasure being one of them.
It doesn’t help that fear is the brother of pleasure. Pleasure is a hunger that is insatiable, whence that hunger is challenged by you, you will discover a power beyond anything you could imagine.
Finally, pleasure lasts temporarily - potential lasts a life time.
Wise man vs. man who lives for pleasure seems to be a false dichotomy.
Also, I disagree about genius being about hard work. For the most part, I think that intelligence is innate. Now one person may be exposed to more or less information than another, but without that factor, and with all things being equal, hard work won’t trump innate intelligence. I mean…look at the work force throughout the world…then look at the people who take all the profits without working hard.
“We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is our self against ourselves.” - Alan Watts
“When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.” - Henry David Thoreu
“I disagree” does not magically assuage your ignorance, my friend.
[b]Pleasure is hunger.
This hunger is insatiable.
It’s a void that cannot be filled.
One must not feed it.
To feed such,
is to deprive one’s self.
Hunger is like taking your effort,
and throwing it into a vacuum.
Nothing will change.
Nothing will be created.
[u]Pleasure is but a shadow we cast upon ourselves when we fail to stay in the light.
Only can pleasure be potential when it’s simply the natural result of us enjoying our activities; when it creates and changes - to live only for pleasure, is to live only for death on repeat.[/u][/b]
