I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. My thoughts, other created good meanings in my mind, as well as everything else in my life including my own dreams without my pleasure are all nothing more than just different words, sounds, images, etc. In other words, they are all neutral (neither good or bad) things and it is only my pleasure that makes me and my life good while it is only my suffering that makes me and my life inferior, worthless, and bad. Again, it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to these things. My thoughts and other created good meanings in my mind are all neutral in of themselves and it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to them. This is because they are all neutral conscious experiences which means that there is no profound experience whatsoever from them without my pleasure and that my pleasure is the one and only profound good experience for me in life. Even if I were to perceive something as being good in my life without my pleasure, then that is still a neutral conscious experience and there is nothing profound and good about it. As a matter of fact, my mind would only be tricking me into perceiving that something is good in my life when the fact of the matter is that all of my thoughts and created meanings in life are nothing more than words, sounds, images, etc. in of themselves regardless of how I perceive them. These thoughts might be the words good and bad and might very well be good or bad meanings, but they are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means that they are not truly good or bad at all and that it is only our pleasure and suffering that are the true good and bad things in life. What I mean by “in a neutral sense" would mean that these thoughts are only good and bad in a fake sense.
Very nice. Thanks for that. I still don’t agree with your definition of “neutral”, but at least this is readable. Have you ever read any philosophy? Is there anything out there that you like? This “my mind could trick me” idea sounds like Descartes.
While looking for the standard definition of the moral theory that I generally prescribe to I found this in Wikipedia.] As you can see, within the framework of ethical naturalism, you can change just a few words, come up with just slightly different definitions and you could justify hedonism or altruism. I’m not trying to justify anything, but I accept the general idea that we can make moral statements and we can objectively verify them as true.
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good.Yep, mother nature only gave us feelings to tell us what are desirable outcomes to strive for. There is nothing in built into the universe to tell us what is good or bad, only human feeling. We are part of the animal kingdom after all. This doesn't necessarily mean impulsive or reckless or survival-of-the-fittest, you can desire a life of refinement and country clubs, if that's your thing. Darwin sums it up:
A man who has no ... belief in the existence of a personal God ... can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones. A dog acts in this manner, but he does so blindly. A man, on the other hand, looks forwards and backwards, and compares his various feelings, desires and recollections. He then finds, in accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men that the highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely the social instincts.Impulses and instincts i.e human feeling. Other philosophers who acknowledge this include: Epicurus, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, and of course David Hume. Current experts include Jonathan Haidt and Antonio Damasio and anyone with half a brain because it's freakin obvious. LOL.
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good.I'm no great or learned philosopher and certainly no genius (some might say I'm not even smart), but this comes across as "shallow" more than anything else to me. If I use pleasure as the only guideline for what is good, I could easily decide that eating nothing but chocolate cake gives me pleasure, so that's all I'll eat. On the other hand, there are many things one can experience in life that are certainly not pleasurable in any short term or immediate sense, but give some sense of satisfaction in the long term. Training for a marathon is certainly not pleasurable. Successfully completing a marathon could give one a feeling of satisfaction and yet still not provide pleasure in the hedonistic sense. If pleasure is the only good thing in life and the only measure of a good life, what a sad life indeed.
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. My thoughts, other created good meanings in my mind, as well as everything else in my life including my own dreams without my pleasure are all nothing more than just different words, sounds, images, etc. In other words, they are all neutral (neither good or bad) things and it is only my pleasure that makes me and my life good while it is only my suffering that makes me and my life inferior, worthless, and bad. Again, it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to these things. My thoughts and other created good meanings in my mind are all neutral in of themselves and it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to them. This is because they are all neutral conscious experiences which means that there is no profound experience whatsoever from them without my pleasure and that my pleasure is the one and only profound good experience for me in life. Even if I were to perceive something as being good in my life without my pleasure, then that is still a neutral conscious experience and there is nothing profound and good about it. As a matter of fact, my mind would only be tricking me into perceiving that something is good in my life when the fact of the matter is that all of my thoughts and created meanings in life are nothing more than words, sounds, images, etc. in of themselves regardless of how I perceive them. These thoughts might be the words good and bad and might very well be good or bad meanings, but they are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means that they are not truly good or bad at all and that it is only our pleasure and suffering that are the true good and bad things in life. What I mean by “in a neutral sense" would mean that these thoughts are only good and bad in a fake sense.Absolute statements always get us in trouble. LOis
You're arguments are just as good as any philosopher I know of. I'll spare you the hours you would need to dig through all of Mozart's earlier posts and let you know that he says he has a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. So, like a kid allergic chocolate, he puts a lot of importance on it. Many here have recommended he seek help, and if you read very carefully, you can see some improvement in him over time. Pretty sure it's a "him" anyway. Hard to tell what's real over the internet.I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good.I'm no great or learned philosopher and certainly no genius (some might say I'm not even smart), but this comes across as "shallow" more than anything else to me.
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. My thoughts, other created good meanings in my mind, as well as everything else in my life including my own dreams without my pleasure are all nothing more than just different words, sounds, images, etc. In other words, they are all neutral (neither good or bad) things and it is only my pleasure that makes me and my life good while it is only my suffering that makes me and my life inferior, worthless, and bad. Again, it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to these things. My thoughts and other created good meanings in my mind are all neutral in of themselves and it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to them. This is because they are all neutral conscious experiences which means that there is no profound experience whatsoever from them without my pleasure and that my pleasure is the one and only profound good experience for me in life. Even if I were to perceive something as being good in my life without my pleasure, then that is still a neutral conscious experience and there is nothing profound and good about it. As a matter of fact, my mind would only be tricking me into perceiving that something is good in my life when the fact of the matter is that all of my thoughts and created meanings in life are nothing more than words, sounds, images, etc. in of themselves regardless of how I perceive them. These thoughts might be the words good and bad and might very well be good or bad meanings, but they are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means that they are not truly good or bad at all and that it is only our pleasure and suffering that are the true good and bad things in life. What I mean by “in a neutral sense" would mean that these thoughts are only good and bad in a fake sense.It's good to see you post a normal length post. It's also good to see someone who's thinking about philosophy. However, you really should dig into what other philosophers have done in the subject. You're taking a very simplistic and personal approach, which really boils down to not much at all. For starters, you need to consider what in the world you actually mean by the words you're using: pleasure, good, etc. I'm sure numerous Nazis found pleasure in gassing Jews in WW2 and thought their actions were morally good. That fits your definitions yet I think we'd all agree there's something not right in that example. So you have to consider everything you're saying in the larger context of society. And that just makes things more complicated. OTOH, if this short post of yours is just another abbreviated session of "posting as therapy"... :)
If your pleasure brought you suffering, then it would still be the pleasure itself that is the only good thing while your suffering stands separate as being bad in of itself. Nothing can define your pleasure as being bad since it is a conscious experience that always feels good no matter what. Nothing else can define it as being bad since our thoughts are separate from our pleasure and cannot project themselves onto our pleasure to make it bad. Our thoughts also cannot define anything else as being bad in life either since they cannot project themselves onto those things and make them bad.I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good.I'm no great or learned philosopher and certainly no genius (some might say I'm not even smart), but this comes across as "shallow" more than anything else to me. If I use pleasure as the only guideline for what is good, I could easily decide that eating nothing but chocolate cake gives me pleasure, so that's all I'll eat. On the other hand, there are many things one can experience in life that are certainly not pleasurable in any short term or immediate sense, but give some sense of satisfaction in the long term. Training for a marathon is certainly not pleasurable. Successfully completing a marathon could give one a feeling of satisfaction and yet still not provide pleasure in the hedonistic sense. If pleasure is the only good thing in life and the only measure of a good life, what a sad life indeed.
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. My thoughts, other created good meanings in my mind, as well as everything else in my life including my own dreams without my pleasure are all nothing more than just different words, sounds, images, etc. In other words, they are all neutral (neither good or bad) things and it is only my pleasure that makes me and my life good while it is only my suffering that makes me and my life inferior, worthless, and bad. Again, it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to these things. My thoughts and other created good meanings in my mind are all neutral in of themselves and it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to them. This is because they are all neutral conscious experiences which means that there is no profound experience whatsoever from them without my pleasure and that my pleasure is the one and only profound good experience for me in life. Even if I were to perceive something as being good in my life without my pleasure, then that is still a neutral conscious experience and there is nothing profound and good about it. As a matter of fact, my mind would only be tricking me into perceiving that something is good in my life when the fact of the matter is that all of my thoughts and created meanings in life are nothing more than words, sounds, images, etc. in of themselves regardless of how I perceive them. These thoughts might be the words good and bad and might very well be good or bad meanings, but they are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means that they are not truly good or bad at all and that it is only our pleasure and suffering that are the true good and bad things in life. What I mean by “in a neutral sense" would mean that these thoughts are only good and bad in a fake sense.Suppose you're a masochist. LL
he says he has a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasureThat sheds a different light on it. I now feel as though most of the described "philosophy" did not make sense to me because I cannot relate to it. Someone who cannot feel pleasure who is trying to describe it as the driving force behind everything seems much like a blind person trying to describe to a sighted person how what he "sees" is the driving force in his life. I don't think I can contribute much to this discussion. Sorry. :down:
You're on terra firma, PaineMan. None of the rest of us can, either, which is a point in our favor, IMO. Loishe says he has a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasureThat sheds a different light on it. I now feel as though most of the described "philosophy" did not make sense to me because I cannot relate to it. Someone who cannot feel pleasure who is trying to describe it as the driving force behind everything seems much like a blind person trying to describe to a sighted person how what he "sees" is the driving force in his life. I don't think I can contribute much to this discussion. Sorry. :down:
I feel that my pleasure really is the only good thing in my life and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. My thoughts, other created good meanings in my mind, as well as everything else in my life including my own dreams without my pleasure are all nothing more than just different words, sounds, images, etc. In other words, they are all neutral (neither good or bad) things and it is only my pleasure that makes me and my life good while it is only my suffering that makes me and my life inferior, worthless, and bad. Again, it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to these things. My thoughts and other created good meanings in my mind are all neutral in of themselves and it has nothing to do with me attributing a neutral value to them. This is because they are all neutral conscious experiences which means that there is no profound experience whatsoever from them without my pleasure and that my pleasure is the one and only profound good experience for me in life. Even if I were to perceive something as being good in my life without my pleasure, then that is still a neutral conscious experience and there is nothing profound and good about it. As a matter of fact, my mind would only be tricking me into perceiving that something is good in my life when the fact of the matter is that all of my thoughts and created meanings in life are nothing more than words, sounds, images, etc. in of themselves regardless of how I perceive them. These thoughts might be the words good and bad and might very well be good or bad meanings, but they are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means that they are not truly good or bad at all and that it is only our pleasure and suffering that are the true good and bad things in life. What I mean by “in a neutral sense" would mean that these thoughts are only good and bad in a fake sense.Suppose you're a masochist. LL Suffering itself never feels good and pleasure never feels bad. It is only your pleasure that is derived from your suffering that is good while the suffering itself is still bad. If you obtain suffering from pleasure, then it would be the suffering that is bad and the pleasure would still be good.
It wasn't like I was born with anhedonia and never knew what pleasure felt like. I had my full ability to experience pleasure in the past. But then I lost all of it. I am able to recall what pleasure felt like and how great it was for me in life when I had it in the past.he says he has a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasureThat sheds a different light on it. I now feel as though most of the described "philosophy" did not make sense to me because I cannot relate to it. Someone who cannot feel pleasure who is trying to describe it as the driving force behind everything seems much like a blind person trying to describe to a sighted person how what he "sees" is the driving force in his life. I don't think I can contribute much to this discussion. Sorry. :down:
Very nice response Mozart. Thanks for the clarification. I think we get the general drift of your philosophy. Philosophers usually take words like “good” and dig into them a little deeper. So, okay, pleasure is good, but what is good? Good for who? You add the qualification “if I’m not hurting anyone”. Well, it’s a big complicated world. Eating bacon is more than just bad for your arteries. Your choices in the food chain affect others attempting to participate in that food chain. One person eating bacon isn’t going to cause a famine in Africa, but many people doing it sorta does. You’re not alone.
Very nice response Mozart. Thanks for the clarification. I think we get the general drift of your philosophy. Philosophers usually take words like "good" and dig into them a little deeper. So, okay, pleasure is good, but what is good? Good for who? You add the qualification "if I'm not hurting anyone". Well, it's a big complicated world. Eating bacon is more than just bad for your arteries. Your choices in the food chain affect others attempting to participate in that food chain. One person eating bacon isn't going to cause a famine in Africa, but many people doing it sorta does. You're not alone.Good is defined as pleasure and bad is defined as suffering. Good and bad can only be defined in terms of evolution. Good is our encouraged survival (pleasure) while bad such as pain and despair are our discouraged survival. Although good and bad can be defined in other ways besides our pleasure and suffering, none of those said things are truly good or bad at all and they are all good and bad in a neutral (fake) sense.
And we’re going in circles. Pleasure and suffering are too broad of terms. They can refer to physical or mental states. Probably better to start off with physical states, because then we could apply some reasoning to animals. I don’t actually have an ultimate answer to this, so I’m not going to go too deep here. My point for you is that you start with good=pleasure as if that is as deep as you need to go. Your arguments are then shallow since you don’t consider things like long term satisfaction.
I would start somewhere like, everything thing does exist has some right to exist. If you are going to argue to ending something’s existence, you need to make the argument. Things like “I need to eat to exist” are on the one hand simple, but can have some very non-simple aspects.
I'll spare you the hours you would need to dig through all of Mozart's earlier posts and let you know that he says he has a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. So, like a kid allergic chocolate, he puts a lot of importance on it. Many here have recommended he seek help, and if you read very carefully, you can see some improvement in him over time. Pretty sure it's a "him" anyway. Hard to tell what's real over the internet.I haven't read Mozart's backstory but, for what it's worth, I've spoken to two other people (on other forums) with anhedonia like emotional numbness/paralysis. On both occasions it seemed to be a psychological condition (depression) masquerading behind a philosophical facade. Because they were going through a depression, and they were also intelligent people dealing with philosophical questions of meaning and purpose, they tricked themselves into thinking their depression was a logical conclusion of their philosophical musings. They were completely convinced they had logically painted themselves into an inescapable anhedonian corner. But that was an illogical conflation of two different issues. A quick look at their philosophical musings showed no logical connection to their depression/anhedonia. They were simply depressed and in need of psychological counselling, rather than a philosophical escape route. More counselling, and less philosophy, was my suggestion to them.
A quick look at their philosophical musings showed no logical connection to their depression/anhedonia. They were simply depressed and in need of psychological counselling, rather than a philosophical escape route. More counselling, and less philosophy, was my suggestion to them.Thanks for the insight.This was the first I ever heard of it. I don't feel qualified to say something like "it's all in your head", and I don't think that's what I would want to hear if it we're me anyway. I did read a little on it. It's a problem since you can't really measure someone's experience of pleasure. No doubt though, Mozart is convinced his logic is solid.
I don't feel qualified to say something like "it's all in your head", and I don't think that's what I would want to hear if it we're me anyway.It wasn't my intention to give a definitive diagnosis to these "anhedonian" folks, I repeatedly told them to get professional help. My intention was just to follow their logic through to see if what they thought (i.e. that they'd logically entrapped themselves) was true or not. They were telling me their anhedonia was a direct result of their lifting the veil on reality to uncover a darkness of nihilism, and they were convinced they could never backtrack to their former selves now that their eyes had been opened to the "truth". It was complete baloney, they were just depressed and conflated their philosophy into the mix, IMO. And these were highly intelligent people, which just goes to prove that cognitive ability doesn't always go hand-in-hand with common sense. Maybe Mozart has different names on different forums, maybe it was him that I spoke with.
This reminds me of a new podcast about the mind I recently heard. The story they told was of a guy who saw a slasher movie, then became obsessed with thinking about slashing people, even his wife. He thought he was becoming an evil person but his Dr said the problem is he is hyper moral and had a form of OCD. Once he started thinking about killing, it bothered him, so he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He thought he was doing the right thing by focusing on the thoughts, but it was just an misunderstanding of how thoughts work. He eventually came to understand that these were just thoughts, that he was not ever going to kill anyone.
Disclaimer: This doesn’t apply to everyone, if you’re thinking about killing people, talk to your Dr
Reading all of the above reminds me of a line or two from Rudyard Kipling’s poem If:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
Thinking about Pleasure = Good is fine, but where do you go from there? Does it give your life direction? Does it then make you determined to take some action? Or is it just an excuse to feel sorry for yourself? If the latter, then the second line applies.
My apologies if this comes across as insensitive. But ask in a public forum and that’s what you get.