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

[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.

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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.

I am curious, What happens when you take these neurotransmitters in heavy doses for many years? Will the man become happy for life? What happens to people who take heavy doses of cocaine for many many years?

 

[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.

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.

Or a cause of happiness. It doesn't matter either way for what I'm saying, I don't think. Overdosing is a side issue that can be resolved by consulting medical literature, I suppose.

 

[Unbeatable]

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.

Or myth-making machines. Or confabulators. Or rationalizers. Or self-deluders. We make up stories in our heads about how all-important it is to make up stories in our heads.

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.

While continuing to exist as something else. If you can continue to exist after shedding this thing you call personhood, then maybe your personhood isn't really you; maybe it's just a tool you were using, and now that you're in the box, you don't need it anymore.

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."

Is this an unpleasant thought? And what causes the thought?

 

[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.

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

Well, what other way is there?

 

[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.

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.

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You got it. I used to love Nietzstsztchszhsesheszhs...yeah that guy. I still do. But I think those who are truly superior and know it, ought to be polite about it, since it was a matter of luck anyway, and decent about it, rather than smug and self-obsessed. We can use what is best in our noggins to subdue our reptilian natures and cultivate generosity, compassion, and learn to love lavishly.

 

[PyramidHead]

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

Well, what other way is there?

The number may be infinite. How do you know that "hedonism is NOT the way"?

 

[ontological_realist]

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.

Or a cause of happiness. It doesn't matter either way for what I'm saying, I don't think. Overdosing is a side issue that can be resolved by consulting medical literature, I suppose.

It could be cause of happiness but it is not. Why it is not? Because I say so and as every intelligent person knows reality is as I say it is. Hallelujah

 

[WAB]

Well, what other way is there?

The number may be infinite. How do you know that "hedonism is NOT the way"?

I don't know. Just announcing my opinion.

 

[rousseau]

Hedonism is the school of thought that says, do what feels good. Obvious counterexamples are when you should be doing something that doesn't feel good, but helps somebody in need. But if you decide to do that, you're choosing it over something else, presumably (primarily?) on grounds related to how you feel about doing it. Is there a sort of meta-hedonism at play, where people who don't always take the direct route to feeling good are nonetheless always doing things that are instrumental to that goal? Is it even possible in principle to voluntarily do something you don't want to do, compared to the alternatives? That's my main question, and I don't expect to get a complete answer, it's just something I've been mulling over.

More fundamentally, though, I am exploring the implications of a philosophy that suggests the following: maximize activities wherein you feel good about doing them, feel good while doing them, and feel good after doing them (with the upper end of each scale representing activities that are more worth doing by this metric). Supposing one could achieve a measure of success in this philosophy by doing things that harm others, but the negative consequences of harming others are vastly outweighed by the good feelings about/during/after whatever he does, is there really any point in condemning him? If all behavior is hedonistic in the way I suggested in the first paragraph, meaning everybody is just doing what they feel good about doing in the end, all I can reasonably do is try to distance myself from someone like that, or try to convince him of the feel-good side of altruism--both of which would, again, be self-serving endeavors on my part--but I don't see how I can consistently denounce him.

If somebody seeks out pleasure which also causes negative consequences to others, they're an asshole, depending on what those consequences are, and potentially ignorant. Whether you choose to denounce them is completely up to you.

On a side-note, some how this thread came to mind today when I was at work and I thought I'd check it out (had never read it before). Funny part was, I thought it was going to be about something completely different: does life boil down to accepting a philosophy for ourselves to maximize pleasure, always.

 

[ryan]

Is it even possible in principle to voluntarily do something you don't want to do, compared to the alternatives?

I think it's all about the accomplishment from making any choice. When you choose something, you automatically get a "reward" for accomplishing the choice no matter what it is. If you don't choose, then bad things can happen. But you still have to make the choice not to choose.