Does everything boil down to (meta-meta-meta-) hedonism?

[untermensche]

My point is that it isn't something that automatically produces pleasure.

It certainly can, but that is a bit of a gamble, because it can also create incredible displeasure.

It isn't a path where future pleasure or displeasure are even considered.

It is a path people take because of incredibly strong subconscious impulses.

Most of what you say is true from both the perspective of the person having children and the perspective of the children themselves. However, as Togo says, I don't think it's a counterexample to universal hedonism/self-interest, because parents generally hope that long-term satisfaction will coincide with their choices in having and raising children. Surely you must think SOME people consider future pleasure when deciding whether to start a family?

I would think that the hedonist does what he knows will bring pleasure.

He knows pleasure and he seeks it.

Sex is pleasure, but raising a child may or may not be a pleasure.

But this direction is taken so often, despite no knowledge of assured pleasure, that I don't see how it could be driven by hedonism.

A mating instinct as driving force makes more sense to me than an expression of pleasure maximization.

 

[Togo]

When people object to it, it's because thinking about the idea makes them feel bad on some level.

How do you know?

I'm not saying the theory is implausible, but it does seem unevidenced. And if you're contradicting other people's account of themselves, you need some kind of reason.

Otherwise we might just as well argue that all human motivation is based on their relationship to a deity.

 

[PyramidHead]

If this Pink Box were perfected, it would offer an experience no different from whatever the person would have preferred to experience outside the box. Let's call this the Perfect Pink Box (PPB).

Assuming the PPB has these properties, what would be Bob's rationale for choosing not to go inside? Assume that Bob is not skeptical of the PPB's ability. Presumably, Bob wants his life to be 'authentic' in that it is not the result of a sophisticated simulation, but a real life in an actual universe. Of course, he has no way of knowing if he is currently in an actual universe anyway, but he is more certain of the authenticity of his present state than the alternative in the PPB (which he knows is not a real life). In other words, Bob's preference for an authentic life cannot be satisfied by the PPB, by definition. As the satisfaction of preferences is still the basis upon which Bob is making his choice, this cannot be a counterexample to hedonism, when hedonism is defined as the claim that any voluntary activity boils down to the satisfaction of the actor's preferences. It may be the case that going into the PPB would better satisfy more of Bob's preferences than remaining in the actual universe, but this doesn't matter as long as Bob believes otherwise.

The general idea here is that even when people choose a path that involves less pleasure than the available alternatives, they are still satisfying a preference, namely the preference for the combination of risks and rewards offered by that path and not any other. So, while hedonism in the sense of pleasure may not explain behavior, hedonism as the satisfaction of preferences might. In a situation where someone is able to satisfy their preferences in a way that harms other people, it could be the case that he simply lacks the preference to avoid harming others, for whatever reason. There is nothing special about the preference to avoid harming others, in other words. It constitutes a node among many competing preferences in the network of an individual's decision-making apparatus.

 

[Togo]

If this Pink Box were perfected, it would offer an experience no different from whatever the person would have preferred to experience outside the box. Let's call this the Perfect Pink Box (PPB).

Assuming the PPB has these properties, what would be Bob's rationale for choosing not to go inside? Assume that Bob is not skeptical of the PPB's ability. Presumably, Bob wants his life to be 'authentic' in that it is not the result of a sophisticated simulation, but a real life in an actual universe. Of course, he has no way of knowing if he is currently in an actual universe anyway, but he is more certain of the authenticity of his present state than the alternative in the PPB (which he knows is not a real life). In other words, Bob's preference for an authentic life cannot be satisfied by the PPB, by definition. As the satisfaction of preferences is still the basis upon which Bob is making his choice, this cannot be a counterexample to hedonism, when hedonism is defined as the claim that any voluntary activity boils down to the satisfaction of the actor's preferences. It may be the case that going into the PPB would better satisfy more of Bob's preferences than remaining in the actual universe, but this doesn't matter as long as Bob believes otherwise.

The general idea here is that even when people choose a path that involves less pleasure than the available alternatives, they are still satisfying a preference, namely the preference for the combination of risks and rewards offered by that path and not any other. So, while hedonism in the sense of pleasure may not explain behavior, hedonism as the satisfaction of preferences might. In a situation where someone is able to satisfy their preferences in a way that harms other people, it could be the case that he simply lacks the preference to avoid harming others, for whatever reason. There is nothing special about the preference to avoid harming others, in other words. It constitutes a node among many competing preferences in the network of an individual's decision-making apparatus.

This looks to be the equivocation I was talking about in my first post.

Is hedonism the thesis that people in fact make choices based on some expectation of pleasure/reward, or is it the thesis that people make choices?

If it's the former, then your PPB is a counter example. The experience, including the experience of authenticity, is identical inside the box as out, and thus a desire for the experience of authenticity is not a valid reason for rejecting the box. The problem is that Bob doesn't want the experience of authenticity, he wants his experience to actually be authentic. He wants something that is not an experience.

If it's the latter, then I contend that hedonims is essentially meaningless. No decision can ever be counter to hedonism, becasue you've defined hedonism as acting according to ones choices.

 

[PyramidHead]

If this Pink Box were perfected, it would offer an experience no different from whatever the person would have preferred to experience outside the box. Let's call this the Perfect Pink Box (PPB).

Assuming the PPB has these properties, what would be Bob's rationale for choosing not to go inside? Assume that Bob is not skeptical of the PPB's ability. Presumably, Bob wants his life to be 'authentic' in that it is not the result of a sophisticated simulation, but a real life in an actual universe. Of course, he has no way of knowing if he is currently in an actual universe anyway, but he is more certain of the authenticity of his present state than the alternative in the PPB (which he knows is not a real life). In other words, Bob's preference for an authentic life cannot be satisfied by the PPB, by definition. As the satisfaction of preferences is still the basis upon which Bob is making his choice, this cannot be a counterexample to hedonism, when hedonism is defined as the claim that any voluntary activity boils down to the satisfaction of the actor's preferences. It may be the case that going into the PPB would better satisfy more of Bob's preferences than remaining in the actual universe, but this doesn't matter as long as Bob believes otherwise.

The general idea here is that even when people choose a path that involves less pleasure than the available alternatives, they are still satisfying a preference, namely the preference for the combination of risks and rewards offered by that path and not any other. So, while hedonism in the sense of pleasure may not explain behavior, hedonism as the satisfaction of preferences might. In a situation where someone is able to satisfy their preferences in a way that harms other people, it could be the case that he simply lacks the preference to avoid harming others, for whatever reason. There is nothing special about the preference to avoid harming others, in other words. It constitutes a node among many competing preferences in the network of an individual's decision-making apparatus.

This looks to be the equivocation I was talking about in my first post.

Is hedonism the thesis that people in fact make choices based on some expectation of pleasure/reward, or is it the thesis that people make choices?

If it's the former, then your PPB is a counter example. The experience, including the experience of authenticity, is identical inside the box as out, and thus a desire for the experience of authenticity is not a valid reason for rejecting the box. The problem is that Bob doesn't want the experience of authenticity, he wants his experience to actually be authentic. He wants something that is not an experience.

If it's the latter, then I contend that hedonims is essentially meaningless. No decision can ever be counter to hedonism, becasue you've defined hedonism as acting according to ones choices.

I think its meaning can be rescued. It takes the air out of any moral dispute. If all of our actions are ultimately performed in service of our preferences, and in principle it cannot be any other way, the distinction between right and wrong is reduced to a description of clashing preferences, none of which can legitimately claim primacy without appealing to prior preferences and creating an infinite regress. A fundamental principle of ethics is to consider the preferences of others and not just your own. What 'preference-hedonism' suggests is that, rather than being a fundamental principle, that dictum is just a token example of a possible preference. If all candidates for foundational norms are seen in this way, it is clear that ethical justification as ordinarily understood is impossible.

 

[Unbeatable]

When people object to it, it's because thinking about the idea makes them feel bad on some level.

How do you know?

From their accounts of themselves.

 

[ronburgundy]

If you don't choose the box, it is because it does not sound pleasurable to you and/or you imagine greater pleasure outside the box.

No, it isn't.

If you want to claim that everyone who doesn't claim to be motivated by pleasure, are in fact motivated by pleasure, you need a pretty good argument to back that up.

You presented the pink box thought experiment and the fact that some reject this abstract fictional "box", as evidence of people rejecting pleasure.
IF you want to claim that your thought experiment provides and evidence of anything or has any implications at all for the issue of hedonism, then you need to demonstrate the validity of the thought experiment, which like real experiments requires showing that people are actually obeying the rules of the game whose outcome you wish to use to infer something about the basis of their choice. I am pointing out that your "thought experiment" is seriously flawed and lacks any real controls or systematic measurement worthy of such a moniker. I have pointed out a scenario that is not only plausible but extremely likely, given what is known about how people deal with abstract concepts. In my scenario the choice you point to as evidence of rejecting pleasure is the exact opposite. IT is a choice based entirely upon pleasure.
I am not claiming that my account is correct, but rather that it is at least as plausible as your assumptions that people are truly abiding by the rules of the game. Thus, the outcome of people saying "I reject the box" has zero implications for hedonism because it just as consistent with hedonism as non-hedonism.

 

[PyramidHead]

No, it isn't.

If you want to claim that everyone who doesn't claim to be motivated by pleasure, are in fact motivated by pleasure, you need a pretty good argument to back that up.

You presented the pink box thought experiment and the fact that some reject this abstract fictional "box", as evidence of people rejecting pleasure.
IF you want to claim that your thought experiment provides and evidence of anything or has any implications at all for the issue of hedonism, then you need to demonstrate the validity of the thought experiment, which like real experiments requires showing that people are actually obeying the rules of the game whose outcome you wish to use to infer something about the basis of their choice. I am pointing out that your "thought experiment" is seriously flawed and lacks any real controls or systematic measurement worthy of such a moniker. I have pointed out a scenario that is not only plausible but extremely likely, given what is known about how people deal with abstract concepts. In my scenario the choice you point to as evidence of rejecting pleasure is the exact opposite. IT is a choice based entirely upon pleasure.
I am not claiming that my account is correct, but rather that it is at least as plausible as your assumptions that people are truly abiding by the rules of the game. Thus, the outcome of people saying "I reject the box" has zero implications for hedonism because it just as consistent with hedonism as non-hedonism.

How about a Perfect Pink Box? In other words, what if the box was personalized to the user, such that it would necessarily deliver more pleasure than not going into the box, based on the user's unique desires? If that were the case, I would concede that people who refuse it are not doing so because of pleasure, as per ordinary hedonism, but are still acting out of self-interest (what I clumsily refer to as "meta-hedonism").

 

[ronburgundy]

Real or hypothetical examples for or against hedonism will never advance our knowledge of this issue, because the construct of "pleasurable" is so inclusive that any act can be construed as serving that goal, and almost always without any more (and usually less) added assumptions than a non-pleasure motivated account.

I think we get more traction by asking, what other motives are there? And, what actually is the fundamental psychological and biological foundation that makes something a goal or motive that could possible direct action toward A and from B?

I don't know of any psychologically or biologically plausible account of how an organism acquires preferences that is not rooted in the basic "approach-avoidance" / "pleasure - pain" system. The organism experiences actual psychical bodily sensations that are what we ultimately label pleasure and pain.
That is the system that directs actions toward A and away from B. Ideas about the objective properties of things themselves can never motivate or direct action. No set of premises implies "do A" more than "do B", unless among those premises is a purely subjective feeling/emotion that favors the sensed or assumed properties of A over B. IOW, unless one or more premises contains the notion of "should", then the conclusion never can, and that "should" is a subjective preference that itself must be rooted in an emotional system that allows for non-factual feelings that favor somethings over others.

Neuroscience is increasingly showing that the basic approach-avoidance system that controls behavioral actions in all mammals is at the foundation of all emotion and our subjective experience of pleasure and pain.

How can a biological system ever come to prefer A over B, without some innate approach-avoidance system of preference that via experiences learns to associate the features of A and B with those innate preferences. A beaten animal will never learn to avoid beatings, no matter how often it is beaten, unless it feels pain from those beatings. IOW, unless it is predisposed with a system that triggers avoidance actions/choices based upon the kind of sensory inputs we subjectively experience as and refer to as "pain".

Bottom line is that all action and choices being rooted in the same system that generates pleasure-pain experiences has very highly psychological and biological plausibility. The mechanism by which this could happen are increasingly understood. There appears to be no science or even a clear conceptual formulation of what actions and choices driven without a basic pleasure-pain system would mean or how it would work.

 

[ronburgundy]

You presented the pink box thought experiment and the fact that some reject this abstract fictional "box", as evidence of people rejecting pleasure.
IF you want to claim that your thought experiment provides and evidence of anything or has any implications at all for the issue of hedonism, then you need to demonstrate the validity of the thought experiment, which like real experiments requires showing that people are actually obeying the rules of the game whose outcome you wish to use to infer something about the basis of their choice. I am pointing out that your "thought experiment" is seriously flawed and lacks any real controls or systematic measurement worthy of such a moniker. I have pointed out a scenario that is not only plausible but extremely likely, given what is known about how people deal with abstract concepts. In my scenario the choice you point to as evidence of rejecting pleasure is the exact opposite. IT is a choice based entirely upon pleasure.
I am not claiming that my account is correct, but rather that it is at least as plausible as your assumptions that people are truly abiding by the rules of the game. Thus, the outcome of people saying "I reject the box" has zero implications for hedonism because it just as consistent with hedonism as non-hedonism.

How about a Perfect Pink Box? In other words, what if the box was personalized to the user, such that it would necessarily deliver more pleasure than not going into the box, based on the user's unique desires? If that were the case, I would concede that people who refuse it are not doing so because of pleasure, as per ordinary hedonism, but are still acting out of self-interest (what I clumsily refer to as "meta-hedonism").

I'd argue that not a single person would actually choose not going into it, and that there has never been a psychologically plausible account of how they could reach that decision (see my post above) without it being ultimately rooted in a basic pleasure-pain system. I would argue that their is zero evidence that anyone would refuse such a box even while have complete and perfectly accurately knowledge and subjective awareness of the pleasure of the box. No one has ever been in such a box, and most of what is known about human cognition says that no one could hypothetically imagine that exact experience of what it actually is like without actually being in the box. I'd argue that the "thought experiment" is still nothing close to an actual experiment and its results reveal nothing.
Keep in mind that the perfect box would not only have to be perfect at the moment of the choice, but remain perfect every moment thereafter. Since what people find pleasurable changes every moment, the experience in the box would have to change every moment. Thus, the "box" is not really even a definable thing but a label for an infinitely variable set of experience with no properties and no place in space. We don't have language to talk about it accurately, and we certainly do not have the minds to imagine it accurately. We deal with objects with relatively stables predictable properties. That is what makes them one object and not another.

 

[ronburgundy]

BTW, is all this talk about perfect pink boxes making anyone else horny?

 

[PyramidHead]

Real or hypothetical examples for or against hedonism will never advance our knowledge of this issue, because the construct of "pleasurable" is so inclusive that any act can be construed as serving that goal, and almost always without any more (and usually less) added assumptions than a non-pleasure motivated account.

I think we get more traction by asking, what other motives are there? And, what actually is the fundamental psychological and biological foundation that makes something a goal or motive that could possible direct action toward A and from B?

I don't know of any psychologically or biologically plausible account of how an organism acquires preferences that is not rooted in the basic "approach-avoidance" / "pleasure - pain" system. The organism experiences actual psychical bodily sensations that are what we ultimately label pleasure and pain.
That is the system that directs actions toward A and away from B. Ideas about the objective properties of things themselves can never motivate or direct action. No set of premises implies "do A" more than "do B", unless among those premises is a purely subjective feeling/emotion that favors the sensed or assumed properties of A over B. IOW, unless one or more premises contains the notion of "should", then the conclusion never can, and that "should" is a subjective preference that itself must be rooted in an emotional system that allows for non-factual feelings that favor somethings over others.

Neuroscience is increasingly showing that the basic approach-avoidance system that controls behavioral actions in all mammals is at the foundation of all emotion and our subjective experience of pleasure and pain.

How can a biological system ever come to prefer A over B, without some innate approach-avoidance system of preference that via experiences learns to associate the features of A and B with those innate preferences. A beaten animal will never learn to avoid beatings, no matter how often it is beaten, unless it feels pain from those beatings. IOW, unless it is predisposed with a system that triggers avoidance actions/choices based upon the kind of sensory inputs we subjectively experience as and refer to as "pain".

Bottom line is that all action and choices being rooted in the same system that generates pleasure-pain experiences has very highly psychological and biological plausibility. The mechanism by which this could happen are increasingly understood. There appears to be no science or even a clear conceptual formulation of what actions and choices driven without a basic pleasure-pain system would mean or how it would work.

Good post. I hadn't thought about the neurology behind it. In the end, the difference between doing something for pleasure directly (in the everyday sense, like going to a strip club) and doing something altruistic that is non-pleasurable (volunteering to clean the restrooms in that strip club) must both be associated with some kind of perceived neurological "reward", otherwise it wouldn't motivate someone to do either.

 

[ontological_realist]

Excuse my ignorance, but here are you treating pleasure as including happiness, joy, peace and bliss etc.? Are these all pleasures? Ordinarily people would differentiate between these emotions I think. For instance almost all people would differentiate between pleasure and happiness perhaps.

.

 

[WAB]

In ye olden dayes, as WilliamB, I used to type out L O N G paragraphs hopelessly defending my point of view. I used to get anxious and angry and frightened by thinking about the responses I might receive. I didn't want to be wrong on the Internet. I wanted 2 always be correct on the Internet. I spent massive amounts of time and energy in a nervous fight with ye invisible thinking foes in the seemingly infinite universe of the Internet.

Then I had a psychotic episode that wound me up in hospital [please note English lack of 'the'] in 2011, and o'er the course of these last few years, I have continued to lose more marbles.

But, if one reads his (or hers) Spinoza*, Pascal*, and (at times) Schopenhauer (avoiding the Hume, and that guy who's name I always have to check the spelling of who's name ends with a 'che' and contains a 'z', or zed for you Canucks), one will realize that everything you are thinking of or have thought aboot has been thought ages ago, and that everything we are typing here has already been scribbled and/or chiseled out in some form or another, across the ages, and all over the world.

I think we are all selfish by necessity. It's nature. We cannot undo or alter the WAY things ARE. Look at Nature. Look at lions tearing apart a little gazelle, or a bear swiping some dope with a camera's head off, or two walruses battling it out, or two giraffes [youtube], or rams. Check out the barbarity of a fancy English fox hunt, or the Spanish bullfighters.

Think this: while some poor fox is being shredded to pieces by a pack of yapping beagles with sharp teeth and powerful jaws, and while some man is being burned alive in a cage, some guy in Japan is having sex with 100 women, having it video-taped, and getting paid for it.

There are hundreds of children who are master musicians and composers in China, Japan, the Polynesian Islands alone, whom no-one will ever hear of, while in Amerika millions of people are babbling about Beyoncé, Moby, and whatshisname.

The world is upsidedown. The crap is at the top, the good stuff is at the bottom.

The only hope is the widespread application of Love*, tolerance* and understanding.*

And sharing, and giving.

And to know that we're intransigently stupid. <3

Hedonism is NOT the way.

But it's natural.

 

[PyramidHead]

Excuse my ignorance, but here are you treating pleasure as including happiness, joy, peace and bliss etc.? Are these all pleasures? Ordinarily people would differentiate between these emotions I think. For instance almost all people would differentiate between pleasure and happiness perhaps.

.

That's the crux of the issue, really. Conceptually we have different labels for the circumstances surrounding those positive feelings, but neurologically speaking they could just be variations in what neurotransmitters are secreted, how much, and in which order.

 

[PyramidHead]

In ye olden dayes, as WilliamB, I used to type out L O N G paragraphs hopelessly defending my point of view. I used to get anxious and angry and frightened by thinking about the responses I might receive. I didn't want to be wrong on the Internet. I wanted 2 always be correct on the Internet. I spent massive amounts of time and energy in a nervous fight with ye invisible thinking foes in the seemingly infinite universe of the Internet.

Then I had a psychotic episode that wound me up in hospital [please note English lack of 'the'] in 2011, and o'er the course of these last few years, I have continued to lose more marbles.

But, if one reads his (or hers) Spinoza*, Pascal*, and (at times) Schopenhauer (avoiding the Hume, and that guy who's name I always have to check the spelling of who's name ends with a 'che' and contains a 'z', or zed for you Canucks), one will realize that everything you are thinking of or have thought aboot has been thought ages ago, and that everything we are typing here has already been scribbled and/or chiseled out in some form or another, across the ages, and all over the world.

I think we are all selfish by necessity. It's nature. We cannot undo or alter the WAY things ARE. Look at Nature. Look at lions tearing apart a little gazelle, or a bear swiping some dope with a camera's head off, or two walruses battling it out, or two giraffes [youtube], or rams. Check out the barbarity of a fancy English fox hunt, or the Spanish bullfighters.

Think this: while some poor fox is being shredded to pieces by a pack of yapping beagles with sharp teeth and powerful jaws, and while some man is being burned alive in a cage, some guy in Japan is having sex with 100 women, having it video-taped, and getting paid for it.

There are hundreds of children who are master musicians and composers in China, Japan, the Polynesian Islands alone, whom no-one will ever hear of, while in Amerika millions of people are babbling about Beyoncé, Moby, and whatshisname.

The world is upsidedown. The crap is at the top, the good stuff is at the bottom.

The only hope is the widespread application of Love*, tolerance* and understanding.*

And sharing, and giving.

And to know that we're intransigently stupid. <3

Hedonism is NOT the way.

But it's natural.

I was with you until you went from describing the world to preaching the One True Way to operate within it.

 

[Veritass]

Excuse my ignorance, but here are you treating pleasure as including happiness, joy, peace and bliss etc.? Are these all pleasures? Ordinarily people would differentiate between these emotions I think. For instance almost all people would differentiate between pleasure and happiness perhaps.

.

That's the crux of the issue, really. Conceptually we have different labels for the circumstances surrounding those positive feelings, but neurologically speaking they could just be variations in what neurotransmitters are secreted, how much, and in which order.

Yes, but we humans are narrative-making machines. If I am in the pink box, and I am suffused with electro-cranial bliss to the point that I cannot think, then I have ceased to exist as a person. If I can still think, then I am thinking, "Wow, this feels good, but I wonder what other joys in life I might be missing."

I would choose the real life with its varied combinations of joys and pains. How the steak tastes better when you have a little truffle mac-n-cheese to cut the flavor of the steak and make it that much better when you go back to it.

 

[PyramidHead]

That's the crux of the issue, really. Conceptually we have different labels for the circumstances surrounding those positive feelings, but neurologically speaking they could just be variations in what neurotransmitters are secreted, how much, and in which order.

Yes, but we humans are narrative-making machines. If I am in the pink box, and I am suffused with electro-cranial bliss to the point that I cannot think, then I have ceased to exist as a person. If I can still think, then I am thinking, "Wow, this feels good, but I wonder what other joys in life I might be missing."

Me too. But remember, we know that those thoughts have a neuro-chemical basis of some sort. The satisfaction and contentment of a 'real life with its varied combinations of joys and pains' is, in the end, translatable to what happens in the brain of the person enjoying it. Incoming sense data that comfortably reinforces the narratives we make are associated with, say, a puff of an endorphin cocktail. When we process the information of our environment within the context of an over-arching narrative that appeals to our preferences, whatever they may be, the reason it feels nice probably has a lot to do with the brain giving itself a little dopamine reward. Program an imaginary Pink Box with all that information, and twiddle the knobs to produce the best possible combo and timing of electrochemical signals, and it becomes a case of "anything you [a real life with its varied combinations of joys and pains] can do, I can do better." Presented with the option, I am comfortable enough with my understanding of the situation that I would probably enter the box.

I would choose the real life with its varied combinations of joys and pains. How the steak tastes better when you have a little truffle mac-n-cheese to cut the flavor of the steak and make it that much better when you go back to it.

Interesting: in The Matrix, Cypher used the exact same analogy to argue AGAINST being in the real world, and staying inside a simulation so powerful that it could produce an experience indistinguishable from eating a perfect steak.

 

[ontological_realist]

Excuse my ignorance, but here are you treating pleasure as including happiness, joy, peace and bliss etc.? Are these all pleasures? Ordinarily people would differentiate between these emotions I think. For instance almost all people would differentiate between pleasure and happiness perhaps.

.

That's the crux of the issue, really. Conceptually we have different labels for the circumstances surrounding those positive feelings, but neurologically speaking they could just be variations in what neurotransmitters are secreted, how much, and in which order.

Thanks for your reply.

When a person is angry, his facial look may change. Does that mean that that changed facial look is anger? I would say no, the changed face is not anger but only a symptom, effect or sign of anger.
Similarly what neurotransmitters are secreted, how much, and in which order are not happiness but only an effect, symptom or sign of happiness.

 

[ontological_realist]

In ye olden dayes, as WilliamB, I used to type out L O N G paragraphs hopelessly defending my point of view. I used to get anxious and angry and frightened by thinking about the responses I might receive. I didn't want to be wrong on the Internet. I wanted 2 always be correct on the Internet. I spent massive amounts of time and energy in a nervous fight with ye invisible thinking foes in the seemingly infinite universe of the Internet.

Then I had a psychotic episode that wound me up in hospital [please note English lack of 'the'] in 2011, and o'er the course of these last few years, I have continued to lose more marbles.

But, if one reads his (or hers) Spinoza*, Pascal*, and (at times) Schopenhauer (avoiding the Hume, and that guy who's name I always have to check the spelling of who's name ends with a 'che' and contains a 'z', or zed for you Canucks), one will realize that everything you are thinking of or have thought aboot has been thought ages ago, and that everything we are typing here has already been scribbled and/or chiseled out in some form or another, across the ages, and all over the world.

I think we are all selfish by necessity. It's nature. We cannot undo or alter the WAY things ARE. Look at Nature. Look at lions tearing apart a little gazelle, or a bear swiping some dope with a camera's head off, or two walruses battling it out, or two giraffes [youtube], or rams. Check out the barbarity of a fancy English fox hunt, or the Spanish bullfighters.

Think this: while some poor fox is being shredded to pieces by a pack of yapping beagles with sharp teeth and powerful jaws, and while some man is being burned alive in a cage, some guy in Japan is having sex with 100 women, having it video-taped, and getting paid for it.

There are hundreds of children who are master musicians and composers in China, Japan, the Polynesian Islands alone, whom no-one will ever hear of, while in Amerika millions of people are babbling about Beyoncé, Moby, and whatshisname.

The world is upsidedown. The crap is at the top, the good stuff is at the bottom.

The only hope is the widespread application of Love*, tolerance* and understanding.*

And sharing, and giving.

And to know that we're intransigently stupid. <3

Hedonism is NOT the way.

But it's natural.

It is good to read your post as you did not cut off your feelings while writing this.

By the way, you wrote, "(avoiding the Hume, and that guy who's name I always have to check the spelling of who's name ends with a 'che' and contains a 'z', or zed for you Canucks)". This guy's name is Nietzsche.

.