Sorry, I don’t know why that posted twice.
Depends if you’ve experienced the pleasure of having your post read…
I’d like to think so, yes. Want proof, look at the number of posts I have… I’m the 18th person to achieve the 1000 post barrier, but around here that doesn’t mean much… Check out Imp, he has over 2500 posts, but most of them are more or less tidbits of rambling.
I like Dunamis’ Spinoza quote. According to it, the answer to this:
(if you take ‘unending’ out, maybe, 'cause it complicates the question) is “no”. Happiness/pleasure is not perfection (but the transition to it, a more active, powerful state), and unhappiness/displeasure is not imperfection (but the transition to a more passive, powerless state).
You have to experience “other than this” to know what experiencing “this” is (implying a transition between the two experiences), as Sagesound (and Chetery) brought up (I read it). Hm, wait. I think it would be possible to know how a carress feels without having felt a slap. But, maybe you would take the carress for granted after a while if you did not move from ‘experiencing carress’ to ‘no experience of carress’.
Of course… one man’s perfection/power may be another man’s imperfection/powerlessness… (yes? no?)
The thing about transition… Say ‘A’ is ‘most powerful’ and ‘Z’ is ‘least powerful’… and we have John and Jack, two identical twins with identical-enough values, with John at ‘C’ and Jack at ‘F’… According to the Spinoza quote (correct me if I’m wrong) – if Jack goes from ‘F’ to ‘A’ he will experience more happiness than John going from ‘C’ to ‘A’ because, though they have both attained ‘perfection’ (this is of course a fictional example not acknowledging an actual ‘perfection’ or ‘omnipotence’), Jack’s transition was greater. If Jack goes from ‘F’ to ‘G’ he will experience less unhappiness than John going from ‘C’ to ‘G’, because, even though they end up at the same level of powerlessness, John’s transition to it is more extreme.
There’s a lot of factors left out of this discussion, y’all.
How 'bout this one:
The short-term and the long-term…
that transition over time…
powerful/active now (instant), or powerful/active later (see results in future) – which is ‘real’ happiness and which is comparable to ‘blissful ignorance’?
Dunamis,
“humans act to actâ€
Why does a robot act? It does not act to do anything, but their are processes at work. The question is “how?” not “to achieve what purpose?”
“For instance, why forgo a pleasure – in violation of your policy? Just to get more pleasure? In order to avoid future pain?”
Yes and yes. For either.
“Can pleasure be quantified such that the goal of human action is not pleasure, but the most pleasure?”
My theory says that the brain always chooses what it has calculated to produce most pleasure.
“Are there some kinds of pleasure that are not increased but operate at a limit?”
Not sure I understand…
“What becomes of pleasures that automatically lead to pain, are these unpleasures?”
If it causes pain, than there must be enough pleasure involved to warrent the pain. This seems easy to illustrate. I am sure there is something you would accept some pain to obtain, and then there is something you would not accept alot of pain to obtain.
“Why would someone participate in a pleasure that is proven to lead to pain, if avoidance of pain is a primary goal?”
Avoidance of pain is not the primary goal. Persuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain are both the same goal. There are many diffirent mechanisms that can achieve this. For example, pleasure is released whenever pain is eliminated. Maybe release of pleasure dulls pain. But if an action causes pain, then there must be sufficient pleasure to be gained for the brain to decide to act this way. Ask any masochist, why do they do what they do? Alot of them will tell you they enjoy the rush of chemicals that acompany pain, such as adrenaline. Eating spicy food, causes a minor pain but it causes your body to bassicly have a fight or flight response, which releases all sorts of chemicals that are pleasurable. There is also mental pleasure that can be released as a result of pain. A religious person might feel they need punishment. When they cause themselves pain, they are acomplishing a goal of causing punishment. They want to cause punishment because only if they are punished for their sins to they get into heaven, and completing an action that they feel is moving them towards their ultimate desire (heaven) is obviously pleasurable. Just like when you want to do your homework, and you reach the half way point, you might think: “There, Ive done half!” The feeling of moving towards a desired goal is pleasurable. This explains the whole : “Its the journey that counts” saying.
“Why would a heroin addict quit heroin?”
Because he has decided that the loss of the opertunity for alot of pleasure by dying young, or the physical pain from the havok heroine wreaks on your body, or the mental pain caused by being hated by society, family and friends, are not worth the pleasure.
It seems so obvious to me that pleasure is the goal. And most simply this is arrived at by continuously asking why… Ask yourself why you did that. Ask someone else why, and keep asking. The answer will inevitably be “I wanted to.” But when asked why do what you want to do… you reach the end. “Because that which you want… is that which you do, isnt it?” Only desire has no reason behind it. Once you claim desire is your reason, the questioning can go no further. Your defenition is that pleasure is the transition from less perfect to more perfect. So I ask you now Dunamis, what reason is there to move from less perfect to more perfect? No, I do not think that pleasure can have a linguistic defenition. It must be referanced dirrectly from the real world. Only “THERE! FEEL THAT?” is a valid defenition. It cannot be explained to one who has not experienced it, because it is the basis of experience, alongside the 5 senses. Same goes for pain.
Also, how does your defenition explain why when a good moment in a movie occurs, I find pleasure in it. How am I moving to a more active state? And also, why do my muscles start to burn after I sprint for a bit? Am I not entering a more active state?
Ego and Sage, are you two telling me that if I have never experienced pleasure, than if I take a knife and slice my hand, I wont feel pain? No, pleasure and pain are clearly seperate sensations. You can feel pleasure and pain at the same time. One can certainly be known without the other. Your proposed defenition would not make sense in terms of evolutionary value.
It’s times like this I wish we’d all read Aristotle’s Ethics.
Based on what he wrote, I say:
Happiness only happens when we consistently take pleasure
in our virtuous acts. It is when vice means suffering.
Allow me to clarify; I am saying that pleasure and pain are relative, basically the A to Z example. Where a jump from C to A is not as pleasurable as F to C. However, I am also saying that (if A-M are the letters for pleasure and N-Z are the letters for displeasure) even someone who has spent their whole life in N-Z will notice and experience pleasure in moving from Z to X. Same for someone who has experienced only A-M, when they move from A to C they will not experience pleasure.
Life can not be without it’s ups and downs, you are saying that if you stab yourself with a knife you would know pain, even assuming you had never known pleasure, and you would experience pain. Of course you would feel pain and discomfort, but your brain would also activate endorphins (spelling?) and you would experience relief from that pain and as your hand heals over time you would feel better thus achieving some form of pleasure. In this way you can not experience one without realizing the other. Same goes for pleasure if you shoot up heroine for a high, or are making love the sensations experienced then will be replaced by lesser ones.
On another note I have somewhat of chicken or the egg question and that is that surely we have to experience one sensation first. Is that pain in child birth and then the immediate pleasure of a mother’s touch? or do we experience it later with the development of sentience or earlier within the womb? Does a cesarean section avoid that immediete introduction to pain or at least lessen it? and somewhat in support of R.T.'s suggestions if we have to experience pleasure or pain first, before the other, than does that not mean that at least for one instance in life you experience pain or pleasure without knowing the other?
Russiantank
Please correct me if i’m wrong ok 
Experience; One is ‘clubbing’ and having a ‘good’ time when song A comes on.
Thus whenever i now hear song A, i will always enjoy it for the reasons that you proposed in your theory?
Another example,
Experience; I experience a nasty fall and am in ‘TERRIBLE’ pain, the next thing i hear is sirens and song A (playing in the background).
How will i feel?
Rami.
Rami, that is a super simplified version of it, and would rarely ever happen like that. Associations take either lots and lots of time to build up or I think they can occur from an extreme situation, such is the case for “post traumatic stress.” Ever heard of a person experiencing something very traumatic and then for the rest of their life, certain cues that they associate with that experience will trigger an eppisode of pain and stress? And ever seen A Clockwork Orange? The behavioral therapy they gave the main character works under the same principle. So theoreticly, the song you hear durring that painfull experience could from then on trigger negative feelings.
Ego, I dont neccissarily have any objection to the idea that pain and pleasure go hand in hand. I suggested as much in my response to Dunamis. But this in no way means that one is dependant on the other to be felt! Sagesound said that how can you know pleasure, if youve never known pain. This seems to mean that you cant feel pleasure till youve felt pain, or vice versa. Your chicken/egg question is a good one. Also, dont you think it is theoreticly possible to turn off pleasure chemical receptors, and in that case, do you believe pain will never be felt? If we can turn pleasure off before a baby is even born, so he will never know pleasure, do you think that if that baby cuts himself that he will feel no pain?
R.T.,
My theory says that the brain always chooses what it has calculated to produce most pleasure.
What is missing from your theory is what pleasure indicates. Think of it this way: if we follow standard evolutionary thinking, systems of pleasure have evolved in order to induce certain kinds of states. It is the nature of these states that is the actual goal of human action, whether it is consciously so or not. There just is one step missing from your thinking.
Also please define “most pleasure”. How is one pleasure “more” than another.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
I am considering the goal of human action in terms of conciousness. TO US, TO OUR AWARENESS, what is the goal of human action. And evolution did indeed have a goal for us, and… you can say it gave us incentive to achieve the states it had in mind for us. OUR CONCIOUS goal is not to achieve the states evolution would have us achieve, OUR GOAL is pleasure, but yes, pleasure is our incentive to achieve certain states. But also, as I have said before, I think you can say the evolutionary measures within us that are there to enhance our chances of survival have lead to “unexpected” actions. Actions that cannot be rationalized in terms of evolution alone, but can be rationalized in terms of natural consequences of certain tools evolution put in us. For instance, curiousity, learning (induction) and the pleasure drive. I think curiousity is a desire so its a sub-catagory of the pleasure drive, but it is important to illustrate my point. So curiousity is incentive for us to learn. When we hear a noise, we are curious, by nature. We are drawn to attach associations to that noise. We want to Induce. We want to go outside of our cave and associate that noise to its origin. This increases our awareness of the world, and thus can be said to help with survival. All the pleasure we are born with have evolutionary value. Also, the mechanism works such that pleasure can be associated. This gives us obvious incentive to persue circumstances that help in survival. Imagine that we stumble upon a grassy, lush field, with great big apple trees. We eat tons and tons of apples, and its a wonderfull experience. But then it is time to move on, and we go in search of further resources to consume. Because the pleasure of the experience has been associated with the other 5 senses, from now on, whenever we see another grassy, bright green, lush field, we will associate it with the past experience, and pleasure will be released, giving us incentive to go further into the field. And low and behold, areas with lush grass are a sign of fertile ground, which increases the chance of finding great big apple trees, which increases the chance of our survival.
The thing is, the process of induction is not so perfect. Also what we induce may not be the actuall case. The 2nd grassy field we come upon could be home for elephants, and we could get trampled. But we didnt know that, and our induction has led us astray. And in this same way, all those arbitrary pleasures that I have talked about, loving a certain type of music, loving a certain type of personality, loving a certain type of art, loving a certain type of animal, post traumatic stress disorder, phobias, bad dreams, masochism, all can be explained in terms of induction leading us astray. We induce because we are drawn to it, we are curious. Maybe we are too curious? “Curiousity killed the cat” takes on evolutioary value. But evolution has done a fine job on us. We have succeeded in conquering nature, we are the ultimate survivors. And thus there is little harm to induction leading us astray. But it always will. We will always be curious to create more associations. The origin of creativity maybe? An explenation of our diffirences. All can be rationalized in these terms.
“How is one pleasure “more” than another”
Volume im sure has to do with it, maybe type of chemical, maybe dopamine is more pleasurable than endorphins. But for instance, I can certainly tell you that having sex for 30 minutes is more pleasurable than for 5… Eating a little peice of tasty chicken is less pleasurable than eating a Big piece of tasty chicken.
R.T.,
In your entire post I get no sense of what the purpose - evolutionarily, or otherwise - of pleasure, which is key to understanding the purpose of action. I would simply suggest that the purpose of pleasure - both in its evolutionary sense, and in its ideational sense - is to promote well-being. Through our understanding of what “well-being” is, we are able to increase our sense of pleasure. Pleasure - pain is a guidance system. You confuse the blinking of the lights on the instrument panel with the goals that set up the instrument panel itself, so to speak.
Contrary to your, volume equals more:
Volume im sure has to do with it, maybe type of chemical, maybe dopamine is more pleasurable than endorphins.
Recovered drug addicts will attest that more of a substance does not mean more “pleasure”, since volume invariably brings a requisite pain to follow. Under your theory each human being is operating at the maximum state of pleasure, under his or her understanding of pleasure. What is missing is the explanation of how understanding itself can grow. The behavior you exhibit today - at a max conception of pleasure - is different than it was ten years ago - at another max conception of pleasure. Have you learned something? Can, as the stoics suggest, reason lead you to a deeper understanding of what pleasure is, and therefore to greater pleasure?
Dunamis
Dunamis,
You could say that the purpose of every evolutionarily placed system within us is to enhance our species’ survival. And we will speak of it as a purpose, but in fact, it is not truly a purpose, for there is no intention involved. It is better described as an inevitable consequence. Im sure I dont need to explain evolution to you, but the idea is that we are just the version out of all possible genetic mutations that happend to get all the mechanisms that allows us to exist as we do. And the pleasure drive is one of those mechanisms that works because we instinctively find pleasure in all things that have happend to help in the survival of our species. For instance, I can imagine a genetic mutation in which pleasure and pain are reversed, and one feels good when they cut themselves, and feels bad at tasting milk. This mutation would not last long ofcourse, so we are just the ones that got the mutations that happend to facilitate our survival. But this is only early in life. Our other mechanisms that have facilitated our survival, like I said, the process of learning and the association of pleasure and pain to the other senses, all these in concert have not only facilitated our survival to the extent at which we live in right now, but also created in us every other aspect of our being, and is the very essence of who we are. So the “purpose” of pleasure, rather the inevitable consequence of having the mechanism of “persuit of pleasure” is that we will at first seek out milk, and later seek out sex. But also, we will seek out whatever we have associated through our experiences in life with the initial pleasures.
“is to promote well-being”
What is “well-being”?
“Pleasure - pain is a guidance system. You confuse the blinking of the lights on the instrument panel with the goals that set up the instrument panel itself, so to speak.”
Yes, I see how it can be called a guidance system. But I do not understand how I am confusing anything…
“Recovered drug addicts will attest that more of a substance does not mean more “pleasure”, since volume invariably brings a requisite pain to follow.”
Sure, eating too much chicken will make your stomach hurt. Having too much sex will make your muscles sore. Whats the point? All I am saying is that in fact we do make a distinction between that which is more pleasurable, and I merely brought up the example that doing more of a thing can be an example of that distinction. I never made the claim: “Increasing volume of anything pleasurable increases pleasure.” But certainly you have experienced pleasures greater than others. So there is a distinction. I cannot know exactly what that distinction is, because I do not have access to the process’ at work within your head when you feel pleasure one time, and the second time you feel more pleasure. Maybe a neurobiologist could answer that one in time.
“What is missing is the explanation of how understanding itself can grow.”
I dont think its missing. Its certainly not an easy process to explain, and any attempt I or any of us could ever make would only ever be a gross over-simplification. But this is the process of learning is it not? Its the process of association and induction I spoke of.
“Can, as the stoics suggest, reason lead you to a deeper understanding of what pleasure is, and therefore to greater pleasure?”
ABSOLUTELY! Oh absolutely, and it is on the basis of this that I think I can argue why one desire is “better” than another desire. This ability is limited, but I think I can argue why the teaching to a child one belief system is liable to result in less pleasure than another belief system, and it has nothing to do with consequences or the state of society today. Its purely individual and natural.
R.T.,
ABSOLUTELY! Oh absolutely, and it is on the basis of this that I think I can argue why one desire is “better” than another desire.
So if one pleasure can be argued to be better than another pleasure, generic pleasure would not be the goal of human activity, it would seem, but rather a kind of pleasure that is superior to other kinds.
Its purely individual and natural.
This seems contradictory in a way. To say it is purely individual suggests that it is up to the individual to decide and be the ultimate measure. To say it is natural suggests that all individuals are subject to a larger natural order, and their happiness is dependent upon them discovering it and following it.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
Desire is not pleasure. Desire is the persuit of pleasure. One desire can only ever be “better” than another if it provides more pleasure. And though there is some ambiguety to my use of “more pleasure” I can explain how it would work. This idea relies on my theory that there are two origins of pleasure, the physical one, which is instinctive and always there, and the mental kind, the ones borne from associations of certain experiences and the original physical pleasure. A simple example is how young people can be tought to believe in God. Imagine that they are provided sweets along with lectures on God. And throughout their young life the parents and society influence an association to be drawn between God and pleasurable moments. Over time, a belief in the “goodness” of God is formed, and the desire to follow the word of God is created. From then on, whenever that person feels they have done something to acomplish the goal of following the word of God, they obtain pleasure. This is mental pleasure. Now imagine two diffirent religions:
Religion A: DONT MASTURBATE, among other things.
Religion B: The child is tought that Masturbation is an important show of reverance to God.
Now, both of these people will obtain the mental pleasure from acting in a manner they believe is “Good” or acomplishing the goals of their religion that they associate with pleasure. Now, I think it is safe to say we cannot know which mental pleasure is more powerfull. Just like we cannot say that a Jew obtains more pleasure from his religion than an Islamic person. But we DO know that Religion B has inherent, instinctive pleasure of masturbation involved. So both get an unknown amount of pleasure from their respective religion, but the second guy gets to wack off in the process. We Know for sure wacking off at least has SOME pleasure value, so it becomes a math problem:
Religion A has X amount of mental pleasure (X is any random value)
Religion B also has a random value of pleasure X, but also a positive pleasure value P from masturbation.
It becomes a diffirence between X, and X+P. Make your choice. It is analogous to having two doors in front of you, and knowing theres any possible prize behind either of them, but one of the doors has a golden handle that you can take. And we all like gold. So… Which door do you choose?
This is the argument for why parents should make sure to at least not discourage the persuit of physical pleasure in the raising of the child. They may say to persue in moderation, or be smart about how you persue it, but never do what some religions do, such as saying masturbation is a pathway to hell. The set of desires that kind of teaching creates certainly has less of a chance to provide as much pleasure as in a belief that does not discourage physical pleasure.
R.T.,
Honestly nothing you say here makes sense to me in terms of whether pleasure is the goal of human behavior, or if pleasure (and pain) is simply the a guidance system to that goal. Your disparagement of normative social values makes little sense to me as well, as those values are the product of millions of lives having passed through those guidance systems, and hence as the consequence of their experience must be of some value.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
Clarify for me what a goal is to you. What are instinctive responses and how do they work? Is the goal of an instinctive response to maintain the safety or the avoidance of physical harm for a person? Is that the goal of that particular human behavior? Or is there no goal involved? Is it just a mechanism, doing what it does?
R.T.,
The goal of human behavior is “well-being”. It is manifested on every level in the concert of its parts, and the concert it as a part in larger assemblages. “Well-being” is its preservation in accord with what can be called the “laws” of nature, acting in harmony.
Dunamis
R.T. is pleasure and pain only chemical reactions in our brains? I do not believe that it is so simple. Surely many things that bring us pleasure are the result of chemical reactions in our brains and associations with postive or negative experiences, but there are pleasures that we experience through more than just evolutinary products. If we somehow disabled the pleasure and pain receptors in your neurotransmitters could you still feel happiness or enjoyment or sadness. Would you still listen to music or read your favorite literature or still participate in philisophical debate? There are concious pleasures that go beyond our animalistic desires.
I suggest Frued’s Id, Ego, and Superego as a good theory or at least as part of a good theory on human desire.
This post is just my working opinion. Criticism is welcome.
We’ve all heard these:
No pain, no gain. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Good things come to those who wait.
These imply that a greater pleasure can be obtained if, instead of avoiding pain, or the threat of death, or the agony of waiting – you accept such sacrifices as a worthy consequence of attaining the greater pleasure.
For thrill-seekers and dare-devils, the greater pleasure can be just to discover one’s limits, by attempting to go beyond them. The closer you get to that limit, the more powerful you feel.
The more powerful you feel of course brings more pleasure (evolutionary crud), because the more power you have, the more access you’ll have to resources aiding in survival.
You can’t get the same sort of pleasure through a sort of passive ‘instant gratification’ which requires little effort/activity. That’s why I like the Spinoza quote.
When you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something, it’s because you put effort into it. The whole “I can do this!” feeling – it is exciting to see you had more potential (power) than you thought you did.
Loneliness feels passive, powerless, inactive. Interaction is invigorating, activating, and is a sort of exercise. Making alliances is like a dual activity, enabling the achievement of greater pleasure, to go much further beyond one’s limits, but also requiring sacrifice (like compromise in decision-making), similar to those earlier sacrifices (pain, threat of death, agony of waiting).
The more accurately you understand the world, the closer you can get to going beyond your limits, flexing your muscles and asserting yourself on the universe, and all that.
That’s why we do philosophy.
– EGO sum
Have you tried to Google that?