I suspect that thoughts and knowledge would be less salient, but not completely "neutral".
So would I be right in saying that people who have little to no pleasure in life live lesser lives since they are reduced to mere thoughts and knowledge as opposed to people who are more happy in life?
"Lesser" in what sense and from whose perspective?
Lesser in comparison to who I was before when I had my ability to experience pleasure and in comparison to those who do have their full pleasure in life. Lesser would mean that my life is less good and is now not good at all.
Good question TimB. We can all compare ourselves to others and find something in our own lives that is "less". This is not a path to happiness. Paradoxically, if we want to improve ourselves, we need to have a goal, see something better and go for it. But I don't see Mozart doing that. As a wise person once asked me, you don't get angry because your gas gauge is low do you? No, you go fill up the tank. I realize anhedonia is a lot worse than being low on gas, but the point is, Mozart, you're focusing on something that currently you can't do a whole lot about instead of focusing on what you can do.
I suspect that thoughts and knowledge would be less salient, but not completely "neutral".
So would I be right in saying that people who have little to no pleasure in life live lesser lives since they are reduced to mere thoughts and knowledge as opposed to people who are more happy in life?
"Lesser" in what sense and from whose perspective?
Lesser in comparison to who I was before when I had my ability to experience pleasure and in comparison to those who do have their full pleasure in life. Lesser would mean that my life is less good and is now not good at all.
Then something is seriously wrong. What do you think changed it for you. You must have some idea. People don't lose the experience of pleasure in a vacuum. Something must have triggered it.
Lois
I suspect that thoughts and knowledge would be less salient, but not completely "neutral".
So would I be right in saying that people who have little to no pleasure in life live lesser lives since they are reduced to mere thoughts and knowledge as opposed to people who are more happy in life?
"Lesser" in what sense and from whose perspective?
Lesser in comparison to who I was before when I had my ability to experience pleasure and in comparison to those who do have their full pleasure in life. Lesser would mean that my life is less good and is now not good at all.
Then something is seriously wrong. What do you think changed it for you. You must have some idea. People don't lose the experience of pleasure in a vacuum. Something must have triggered it.
Lois
There was a trigger. The mind becomes numb in order to protect itself from extreme stress. I had constant panic throughout the day, could not calm down, and didn't think it would stop and that I would be in this state of no control everyday for my entire life and not get better if I so happen to be treatment resistant in terms of panic disorder because there are such people who are treatment resistant and don't get better. So in order to prevent this near constant state of panic from happening, my mind has become numb. This feeling of numbness is there all the time 24/7 because there would be the risk that if it were to go away or lessen up, that would cause my panic to return. This feeling of emotional numbness has both numbed my fear and my ability to experience pleasure as a result and I never experience any brief moments of any pleasure to any degree at all.