This is a spin-off from the selling strategy thread.
The issue stems from the question of our seeking happiness and avoiding suffering. The question I would ask, is happiness the motive behind us? Is philosophy, religion, et al, our attempt to find happiness?
Further, just what is happiness? Is it simply the avoidance of pain or suffering, or is there something more to our lives?
Finally, just to screw things up, is unending happiness possible without suffering?
JT
if you know not suffering how can you know happiness?
the opposites in life are needed!
even happiness unending would get boring, to live you need the ups and the downs.
Im a psychological egoist, which bassicly means that I think we are determined by nature to seek out pleasure and reduce pain. Theres seperate chemicals. Those that cause the sensation of pleasure we all know, and those that cause the sensation of pain we all know. I think conciousness is a diffirence engine for pleasure and pain. It can calculate which actions need be taken to achieve maximum pleasure or minimize pain. Now, this action is actually the same action if you consider pain a negative on a number line and pleasure a +. For instance, imagine that you just got your leg blown off, you could A, take tylenol, or B, take morphine. Option A will slighly reduce the pain, option B will not only eliminate the pain, but also replace it with euphoric pleasure. If there is nothing else to consider, such as the addictiveness of morphine or the desire to keep your wits about you on the battlefield, than I would think choice B will be selected because the brain has calculated that option B will… move it further along the number line so to say. Both options move your status from left to right, either from a large negative to a smaller negative, from negative to positive, or from positive to larger possitive. Its all moving in the same dirrection, and this is what conciousness does, it is always moving us in that dirrection.
I would define happiness as a state of pleasure. Thats all. I am happy when pleasure chemicals are being released in my brain. For some people there may be a maximum to happiness. Once they reach a state where they are recieving a certain amount of pleasure, their conciousness seeks only to maintain that, and go no further. I think this occurs because they are not presented with the data that allows them to go further. They do not know of any way to go further. This I would define as contentment. Contentment can also occur in a state of pain. They may not know how to get out of a situation of pain, but only be presented with a situation where they have minimized pain. Once they are in that state of minimized pain, they can see no way to go further, so they are content. Note that this would only happen when they cannot even imagine a better alternative. If one can dream of a better life, they are not content, because they desire that life.
Thus, I do believe happiness is totally possible without suffering. All you need to do is keep those pleasure chemicals flowing, and dont let any pain chemicals get released. Such a circumstance is very rare if even possible, so, I think undending happiness is indeed theoreticly possible without suffering.
R.T.,
“Im a psychological egoist, which bassicly means that I think we are determined by nature to seek out pleasure and reduce pain.”
Would you please define pleasure?
Dunamis
I am curious as to how masochism plays into the pursuit of happiness. Is the state of deriving pleasure from displeasure unnatural or does it play a role in any of your views on what pleasure is?
The problem is that pleasure is a sensation, just like any of the 5 senses. But with the five senses, I can point out empericly what a specific sensation is. Like I can tell you that the sensation you experience when your skin is in contact with something is the sensation of touch. I can tell you that the sensation you experience when I make a sound is the sensation of hearing. It is much harder with pleasure though, because what is pleasurable can be manipulated, and what is pleasurable for some, is not pleasurable for others. But I think there is one constant… Sex, or orgasm. Touch a surface with your hand Dunamis. Thats the sensation of touch. Now… um… AHEM, excuse me for this all, but it must be done… well… Dunamis, I want you to now… (cough)… Touch your genitals. You will undoubtedly activate the sensation of touch or feeling in your hand and your genitals… but keep doing it. You should experience something else eventually. A feeling I can only describe as something to be desired. That feeling should escelate, and eventually… well, climax. Then it should quickly rescind, and cease to be, or maybe linger in little amounts about you. Now, all feelings that equate to that feeling you just had in that it can be described as desirable, or something that warrents persual by itself, that is pleasure.
R.T.,
Touch your genitals.
In otherwords you can’t define pleasure. Or, your grand theory is that all human motivations are the equivalent of the above. Right?
Dunamis
They are alike. Just like you cannot define any of the 5 senses in full. You can point out a specific case of a sensation and say that everything that feels similar is that sensation. Because ofcourse the sense of touch is not always the same, and diffirent experiences will cause diffirent variations of touch. But they are all similar. You well rarely if ever confuse one sensation with another. Thus yes, pleasure is all feelings distinct from touch but similar to the one experienced in arousal and orgasm.
R.T.,
Well, if you are going to make something be the goal of all human actions, it would help if you were actually able to define it to some measure.
Thus yes, pleasure is all feelings distinct from touch but similar to the one experienced in arousal and orgasm.
So when I drink a glass of water when I’m thirsty, or I make a cold drink for a friend when he is thirsty, these are each just variations of an orgasm. Right?
Dunamis
Dunamis,
Drinking water when thirsty would be aleviation of pain. Drinking a tasty drink, say you enjoy the taste of coca cola, than that would not only alleviate pain, which is diffirent from releasing pleasure, but it would also cause a sensation similar to the one involved in orgasm, this is indeed my stand. There is a slight alternative to the theory, I will describe it in a moment.
Now, how does science describe the 5 senses? Touch science says, is the sending of nerve signals from your skin to receptors in the brain. Chemicals, same can be said about all the other senses. And so I EXPECT will eventually be said about pleasure. Even now nuerobiologists are pobably working on this very question, what chemicals are associated with the sensation of pleasure. Some chemicals are already suspected to be involved. Dopamine, endorphins, there are probably others. The question is… Could pleasure be caused by a cocktail of them all? Or could pleasure be caused by each? Maybe there are several diffirent variations of pleasure, but they are none-the-less similar, and I for one notice the similarities. The diffirences could be merely a result of quantity or scale of release of chemical, or it can be in fact just diffirent chemicals. I do not know this, but I hope science will be able to inform us soon. At the point when there are difinitive theories of pleasure, it will be much easier to demonstrate pleasure to you Dunamis.
I am not saying my grand theory of life is difinitive Dunamis. But I think the indications are aplenty. You said once to me that all we have is describability. Pain might have even easier describable characteristics than pleasure. Watch a person when physical harm has come to them. I find significant similarities between that scenario and when seeing one who has experienced emotional distress. That is why I am inclined to say pain is involved in both, and most people would tell you the same thing. And watch the describable characteristics of a person having sex, or eating what they admit is tasty food. And then watch that person and how he reacts if he, say… gets a raise, or finds 100 dollars in his pocket, or reads what he admits is a good book, or watches what he admits is a fun movie. There are certainly similarities, and thus I feel inclined to say pleasure is involved.
But it is definatly not cut and dry. There are many questions and curiousities. For instance, someone may watch what he would admit is a sad movie, and you might even see how they react in a manner similar to that of when they found themselves in a sad situation. They may cry, and yet at the end of the movie, they say that it was a great, buitifull movie… Seems contradictory no? And there are plenty of these demonstrations of the ambiguity of pleasure and pain. I have my theories on explaining them, but this is not important now. Let it be said that my experiences through life and observation of people and myself has led me to a very strong conclusion about what is pleasure and pain. To put it simply, pleasure is all that people persue, pain is all that people avoid. I have met many who feel this way, and most of the people I meet have a similar ideas of it, just to a lesser degree and with some confusion or concerns, but I have met almost no one that has stated a completely opposite theory or a radicly diffirent one.
Just out of curiosity, could you please tell me your defenition of pleasure? If you feel you have not found a sufficient one, than I will accept such an answer.
R.T.,
The problem with your theory, and it is a problem with Epicurus as well, is that you lump physical sensation with many other experiences, and in so doing produce a theory of almost no explanatory value at all. Is there any way in your idea that pleasure is the determining factor in all human action which explains why people choose one “pleasure” over another?
my definition of pleasure. I will borrow from Spinoza, which seems fitting:
“Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection.”
Dunamis
I bet he just got done whackin’ it when he said that.
A sustained orgasm is perfection. A nut that reaches all corners of the galaxy makes even the Gods envious.
Is displeasure the transition of a man from a greater to lesser perfection?
EGO,
E3: DOE. 3. Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection.
Explanation.–I say transition: for pleasure is not perfection itself. For, if man were born with the perfection to which he passes, he would possess the same, without the emotion of pleasure.
This appears more clearly from the consideration of the contrary emotion, pain. No one can deny, that pain consists in the transition to a less perfection, and not in the less perfection itself: for a man cannot be pained, in so far as he partakes of perfection of any degree. Neither can we say, that pain consists in the absence of a greater perfection. For absence is nothing, whereas the emotion of pain is an activity; wherefore this activity can only be the activity of transition from a greater to a less perfection–in other words, it is an activity whereby a man’s power of action is lessened or constrained (cf. E3P11N).
Spinoza, Ethics
Dunamis
Pleasure and suffering are inseperable counterparts. How could we tell the difference between the two if one did not exist?
Dunamis,
“and in so doing produce a theory of almost no explanatory value at all.”
I dont understand why you say this…
“Is there any way in your idea that pleasure is the determining factor in all human action which explains why people choose one “pleasure” over another?”
Because one desire is more pleasurable than another… Like I said, I think conciousness is a diffirence engine, it makes the choices that it calculates moves it farthest from left to right on the “number line.” You might ask where the distinction of what is more pleasurable comes from for conciousness. Like, why for one person is listening to Guns and Roses the more pleasurable choice, but for another its listening to Eminem? Well this is explained I think… and its not just random nature. No one is born already loving eminem, or a certain style of art, or MOST IMPORTANTLY, loving compassion, and hating hate. No, but everyone is born with certain instinctively programmed pleasures. These are what you would call physical pleasure and pain. The taste of milk, the pain from cutting oneself. These sensations seem to exist in almost every person from the moment of conception. And it is from these original sensations that arise the other kinds, what I call mental pleasure and pain. And they arise through induction. Through the creation of associations. For example, this is a very crude example, but it only serves to simplify what is undoubtedly a super complex process. Heres the example:
Experience A, baby is drinking LOTS of Milk, and is obtaining lots of pleasure from the experience. All the while, Guns and Roses is playing on the CD player in the background. The baby makes an association.
Experience B, baby is drinking a little bit of Milk, and is obtaining just a little bit of pleasure from the experience. All the while, Eminem is playing in the background.
Both experiences are set asside into memory for the baby. Then some years later, the child is flipping through channels and notices on MTV is playing Eminem, and on VH1 is playing GnR. Each experience of the music is associated with the experiences from drinking milk, but the GnR experience is associated with alot more pleasure. Thus, the trigering of the association actually causes pleasure to be released (Studies have shown this actually happens in humans, though you may recognize this as Pavlovs dog), and more pleasure is released when hearing GnR because he associates it with more pleasure. There, the child has decided to choose one pleasure over another.
I think this theory explains things very well. It is easily explainable in evolutionary terms, it explains the arbitrary nature of alot of pleasures, it explains how our experiences early on build alot of who we will be. It bassicly takes into account alot of diffirent aspects of the world and combines them into one theory. I do not see much of a problem with it, though I would be glad if you tested its integrity. Give me your best shot, this is an invitation to everybody.
“Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection.”
You are going to have to define perfection, because this seems even more ambiguous than my terms. What about one who obtains pleasure from killing? Is that transitioning into perfection?
“it is an activity whereby a man’s power of action is lessened or constrained”
This is the transition into less perfection, so is the transition to more perfection just going from having A amount of choices of action to a greater B amount of possible choices? Like, becoming more free so to say?
Sagesound,
“Pleasure and suffering are inseperable counterparts. How could we tell the difference between the two if one did not exist?”
A blind man cannot tell the diffirence between sight and hearing, because he has no sense of sight to draw a distinction from. But he still can hear. Think of pleasure and pain in the same way. They are seperate chemicals, and how we react to them. You would still be able to feel pain if you couldnt have pleasure, and you would still be able to feel pleasure if you couldnt feel pain.
R.T.,
I dont understand why you say this…
Because if pleasure is simplistically defined as the goal of every human action, and no pleasure can be distinguished from any other, you have simply said, “humans act to act†and nothing more.
I think this theory explains things very well.
I’m sorry it explains conditioning very well, but it does not explain pleasure, what it is, and what differentiates pleasures from each other. For instance, why forgo a pleasure – in violation of your policy? Just to get more pleasure? In order to avoid future pain? Can pleasure be quantified such that the goal of human action is not pleasure, but the most pleasure? Are there some kinds of pleasure that are not increased but operate at a limit? What becomes of pleasures that automatically lead to pain, are these unpleasures? Why would someone participate in a pleasure that is proven to lead to pain, if avoidance of pain is a primary goal? Why would a heroin addict quit heroin? He has his pleasure rather well worked out doesn’t he? To say that pleasure is the only goal is to me an over simplified whitewash upon complex relations. One should know what it is that pleasure means, what is happening through pleasure, which would mean that pleasure is not the goal, but a sign of the goal of a process underway. By saying simply pleasure, you confuse a plethora of events and suggest that they are not discernable from each other. One guy masterbates, one guy shoots up, one guy writes a sonata, one guy sneezes. These are not equivalent events, nor do they motivate a person in exactly the same way.
You are going to have to define perfection, because this seems even more ambiguous than my terms. What about one who obtains pleasure from killing?
Perfection is moving from a more passive state to a more active state. In some ways killing would be moving towards perfection, but if one is passively driven to the act, that would be moving to a more passive state as well, so it would be a combination of the two.
Like, becoming more free so to say?
Very much like becoming free, but for Spinoza the universe is determined, so there is no absolute freedom. There is only moving from a more passive to a more active state.
Dunamis
RussianTank
I find dunamis provided definition of pleasure much better than “an absence of pain”, I do not believe it was an attempt to explain why we seek pleasure just what it is.
also
I find this to be incorrect because pleasure and pain are relative. So no matter how pleasurable or how painful your life is you would feel the difference if that pleasure or pain shifted on your number line. Also, comparing pleasure and pain to sight and hearing is a flawed comparison. Instead think of the relation between light and darkness as the same as that of pain and pleasure.
I sometimes wonder why I bother posting a comment at all when I know it will never be read. Is that suffering?
RussianTank
I find dunamis provided definition of pleasure much better than “an absence of pain”, I do not believe it was an attempt to explain why we seek pleasure just what it is.
also
I find this to be incorrect because pleasure and pain are relative. So no matter how pleasurable or how painful your life is you would feel the difference if that pleasure or pain shifted on your number line. Also, comparing pleasure and pain to sight and hearing is a flawed comparison. Instead think of the relation between light and darkness as the same as that of pain and pleasure.