Knowledge vs Ignorance

[PyramidHead]

We didn't get to decide that for ourselves, unfortunately. My thinking on the matter is probably clear by now.

Yes, although it's still a relevant and interesting (albeit tangential to this conversation) question that we can still ask ourselves now.

When speaking about pain/pleasure, if you want to get down to the nitty gritty, neurophysiological roots of the two phenomena you need to understand a few things:

1) The brain is structured in a way that actively avoids pain at all times
2) The level of 'stimulus' that every brain needs to not be bored is different

What this means in terms of pain is that 'contentedness' arises when all of our needs are being met, whatever those needs are. For one person that could mean dancing at a rave until 3 am after having a nice dinner, for another person that could mean having a tea and sitting in their back yard.

Further, this means that the example you've presented is a bad one because 12 hours of the most excruciating pain imaginable does not have a corresponding opposite of 'unimaginable pleasure'. Some better examples would be:

- Would you put up with 3 really annoying years in school where you experience a fair bit of pain and stress, for 30 years of life security
- Would you put in three months of excruciating hard work, to get a lottery win in return and spend the rest of your life not working

That was the point of the example. It was to show that pain and pleasure are not symmetrical. In both of your counterexamples, you demonstrate my point: to make up for 3 annoying years, you need 30 of life security. To make 3 months of hard work worth it, you have to get a lifetime of financial freedom. You didn't set up either example so that the timespans were equal, you had to vastly skew them towards the not-pain end, and that reinforces what I was trying to say.

Once you frame the problem like that, you realize that life isn't made up of a fluctuation between pain and pleasure, it's made up of a fluctuation between pain and lack of pain. And in (many) real life scenarios, at least in this century, most people experience contentment for the vast majority of their lives, with the odd moments of extra stress / pain.

I cannot register in words how utterly unbelievable I find that statement. I suggest that it is not the product of much serious introspection and observation, but I could be wrong. Indeed, I would have to be very wrong, because I believe the exact opposite of what you say is true. Almost no-one is content, anywhere, in any century. Humans are pathologically dissatisfied, otherwise psychology as a field would not exist, nor would most music, art, poetry, or much of political discourse. Given how easy it is to experience negative sensations, how efficiently they persist and overwhelm our plans, compared to how much effort is required to deal with those sensations so we can function socially, it cannot be the case that most people are without extra stress/pain for the vast majority of their lives. Unless they are the recipients of uncannily good luck, humans must constantly divert resources to isolating, sublimating, or otherwise distracting themselves from suffering, which comes perfectly naturally and without any invitation at all. I would say that the average person, even in developed societies, is generally working more than they would like, less comfortable than they would like, not as healthy as they would like, not as far from old age as they would like, not as beautiful as they would like, and on the whole teetering on the edge of what is acceptable in all of those areas. And again, a point that often gets taken for granted but shouldn't: simply doing nothing for a moderate length of time, unless carefully planned in advance, causes the average person's life to collapse entirely.

So, again, it comes back to whether you consider a predominantly contented life valuable. Personally, I tend to think that life can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but there are other times when I'm absolutely awe-struck by the beauty of the universe, and being a part of it, and I'm incredibly glad to be alive.

I envy you those experiences. I used to feel that way from time to time. Music can bring me there occasionally. But to come full circle to the topic at hand, I know too much now. It could be a phase, it could be a hat that I'm trying on. And nobody can prove that their view of life's value is the correct one. It's like when religious family members ask me how I can look around at the splendor of God's creation and not believe in a divine creator. Too late. I can't go back to thinking like that anymore. I know too much now.

 

[rousseau]

Yes, although it's still a relevant and interesting (albeit tangential to this conversation) question that we can still ask ourselves now.

When speaking about pain/pleasure, if you want to get down to the nitty gritty, neurophysiological roots of the two phenomena you need to understand a few things:

1) The brain is structured in a way that actively avoids pain at all times
2) The level of 'stimulus' that every brain needs to not be bored is different

What this means in terms of pain is that 'contentedness' arises when all of our needs are being met, whatever those needs are. For one person that could mean dancing at a rave until 3 am after having a nice dinner, for another person that could mean having a tea and sitting in their back yard.

Further, this means that the example you've presented is a bad one because 12 hours of the most excruciating pain imaginable does not have a corresponding opposite of 'unimaginable pleasure'. Some better examples would be:

- Would you put up with 3 really annoying years in school where you experience a fair bit of pain and stress, for 30 years of life security
- Would you put in three months of excruciating hard work, to get a lottery win in return and spend the rest of your life not working

That was the point of the example. It was to show that pain and pleasure are not symmetrical. In both of your counterexamples, you demonstrate my point: to make up for 3 annoying years, you need 30 of life security. To make 3 months of hard work worth it, you have to get a lifetime of financial freedom. You didn't set up either example so that the timespans were equal, you had to vastly skew them towards the not-pain end, and that reinforces what I was trying to say.

Once you frame the problem like that, you realize that life isn't made up of a fluctuation between pain and pleasure, it's made up of a fluctuation between pain and lack of pain. And in (many) real life scenarios, at least in this century, most people experience contentment for the vast majority of their lives, with the odd moments of extra stress / pain.

I cannot register in words how utterly unbelievable I find that statement. I suggest that it is not the product of much serious introspection and observation, but I could be wrong. Indeed, I would have to be very wrong, because I believe the exact opposite of what you say is true. Almost no-one is content, anywhere, in any century. Humans are pathologically dissatisfied, otherwise psychology as a field would not exist, nor would most music, art, poetry, or much of political discourse. Given how easy it is to experience negative sensations, how efficiently they persist and overwhelm our plans, compared to how much effort is required to deal with those sensations so we can function socially, it cannot be the case that most people are without extra stress/pain for the vast majority of their lives. Unless they are the recipients of uncannily good luck, humans must constantly divert resources to isolating, sublimating, or otherwise distracting themselves from suffering, which comes perfectly naturally and without any invitation at all. I would say that the average person, even in developed societies, is generally working more than they would like, less comfortable than they would like, not as healthy as they would like, not as far from old age as they would like, not as beautiful as they would like, and on the whole teetering on the edge of what is acceptable in all of those areas. And again, a point that often gets taken for granted but shouldn't: simply doing nothing for a moderate length of time, unless carefully planned in advance, causes the average person's life to collapse entirely.

So, again, it comes back to whether you consider a predominantly contented life valuable. Personally, I tend to think that life can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but there are other times when I'm absolutely awe-struck by the beauty of the universe, and being a part of it, and I'm incredibly glad to be alive.

I envy you those experiences. I used to feel that way from time to time. Music can bring me there occasionally. But to come full circle to the topic at hand, I know too much now. It could be a phase, it could be a hat that I'm trying on. And nobody can prove that their view of life's value is the correct one. It's like when religious family members ask me how I can look around at the splendor of God's creation and not believe in a divine creator. Too late. I can't go back to thinking like that anymore. I know too much now.

And my point was that your example doesn't work because 'the worst pain imaginable' has no corresponding opposite. You can't compare negative pain and positive pleasure, because there is no such thing as positive pleasure in relation to pain. The only way to compare an equal quantity of pain and lack of pain is to either:

- compare equal amounts of mild discomfort and lack of discomfort (true to life)
- compare a small amount of significant discomfort for a significant amount of lack of discomfort (also true to life)

So when you bring these examples back in the real world, you're asking yourself something like: would you do obligatory work five days a week, to have nights and weekends completely to yourself? In which case, many people (almost everyone) actually chooses to do so.

I don't know how else to say it but I don't think your example actually signifies anything.

I cannot register in words how utterly unbelievable I find that statement. I suggest that it is not the product of much serious introspection and observation, but I could be wrong. Indeed, I would have to be very wrong, because I believe the exact opposite of what you say is true. Almost no-one is content, anywhere, in any century. Humans are pathologically dissatisfied, otherwise psychology as a field would not exist, nor would most music, art, poetry, or much of political discourse

And I find this statement equally unbelievable.

I've met a lot of people in my life .. like a lot of people. I've met many people who have anxiety, but I have met very, very, very few who hate their lives so much that they find them to be a net negative, let alone unbearable.

Here's some homework for you: next time you're out on the town do a lot of people watching. Keep an eye on the people around you and see whether they look like they're in overwhelming pain. I think you'll notice that most people look, at worst, unbothered, and you'll also notice that your mindset seems to be the outlier.

 

[PyramidHead]

I've met a lot of people in my life .. like a lot of people. I've met many people who have anxiety, but I have met very, very, very few who hate their lives so much that they find them to be a net negative, let alone unbearable.

Here's some homework for you: next time you're out on the town do a lot of people watching. Keep an eye on the people around you and see whether they look like they're in overwhelming pain. I think you'll notice that most people look, at worst, unbothered, and you'll also notice that your mindset seems to be the outlier.

I find this a very uncharitable and condescending reply. You have reduced my observation to a statement about how people look when they go out in public.

 

[rousseau]

I've met a lot of people in my life .. like a lot of people. I've met many people who have anxiety, but I have met very, very, very few who hate their lives so much that they find them to be a net negative, let alone unbearable.

Here's some homework for you: next time you're out on the town do a lot of people watching. Keep an eye on the people around you and see whether they look like they're in overwhelming pain. I think you'll notice that most people look, at worst, unbothered, and you'll also notice that your mindset seems to be the outlier.

I find this a very uncharitable and condescending reply. You have reduced my observation to a statement about how people look when they go out in public.

I don't mean any disrespect of course.

Without turning this into a long, drawn out conversation, we both have polar opposing viewpoints. One of us must be closer to correct. I think life really isn't that bad for most people, most of the time. You think the opposite. We both suggest introspection to each other, so let's do that and agree to disagree.

 

[PyramidHead]

I find this a very uncharitable and condescending reply. You have reduced my observation to a statement about how people look when they go out in public.

I don't mean any disrespect of course.

Without turning this into a long, drawn out conversation, we both have polar opposing viewpoints. One of us must be closer to correct. I think life really isn't that bad for most people, most of the time. You think the opposite. We both suggest introspection to each other, so let's do that and agree to disagree.

Fine by me.

 

[fromderinside]

Almost no-one is content, anywhere, in any century. Humans are pathologically dissatisfied, otherwise psychology as a field would not exist, nor would most music, art, poetry, or much of political discourse. Given how easy it is to experience negative sensations, how efficiently they persist and overwhelm our plans, compared to how much effort is required to deal with those sensations so we can function socially, it cannot be the case that most people are without extra stress/pain for the vast majority of their lives. Unless they are the recipients of uncannily good luck, humans must constantly divert resources to isolating, sublimating, or otherwise distracting themselves from suffering, which comes perfectly naturally and without any invitation at all. I would say that the average person, even in developed societies, is generally working more than they would like, less comfortable than they would like, not as healthy as they would like, not as far from old age as they would like, not as beautiful as they would like, and on the whole teetering on the edge of what is acceptable in all of those areas. And again, a point that often gets taken for granted but shouldn't: simply doing nothing for a moderate length of time, unless carefully planned in advance, causes the average person's life to collapse entirely.

Suffering and pain are really different from each other. Any discussion considering those two items must attribute different opposites to each.

Job suffered. A person with burns over 60% of her body feels pain. The whole notion of Job was to teach obedience to God as the source of ecstasy and delight. It takes constant work to be a good person. The whole notion about pain is to guide one from harmful physical encounter. The ability to feel pain it is the get out of jail card for bodily comfort if you will.

People are uncertain. Discovering certainty in absence of threat in most any form would result in relief and pleasure.

Are we either of the creatures PyramidHead and rousseau posit? We are one or the other depending on our intuitions of where we are given goals.

However these states are not what defines knowledge and ignorance. Knowledge is having understanding. Ignorance is not caring whether one has understanding as others see it.

Obviously much different these from resolving anxiety.

 

[Unbeatable]

Unless they are the recipients of uncannily good luck, humans must constantly divert resources to isolating, sublimating, or otherwise distracting themselves from suffering, which comes perfectly naturally and without any invitation at all.

This is the impression I get from performing rousseau's people-watching exercise. People don't seem to be in overwhelming pain. They seem zombie-like, like they're mentally retreating from the world in order to cope. Of course, maybe it's just not a very scientific exercise in the first place.

 

[Draconis]

There's some knowledge I would rather not know.

 

[fromderinside]

There's some knowledge I would rather not know.

You are an evolved being. Doing what you rather may lead to your demise.

 

[PyramidHead]

Are we either of the creatures PyramidHead and rousseau posit? We are one or the other depending on our intuitions of where we are given goals.

There may be a deeper level than this "seesaw" back-and-forth quality. Everybody has ups and downs, some people are happy while others are not, I understand all of this. Depending on who (and when) you ask, life may be good or bad. Beyond all that, there are certain facts about conscious existence that are hard to dispute on empirical grounds. My friend rousseau claims that, despite these facts, people generally seem to feel OK about life. He may be right. But to say that humans have found a way to manage in a bad situation is different from saying the situation is not bad. I was talking about the situation we find ourselves in as a result of self-knowledge, not about whether we have devised/evolved successful strategies to cope with it (which of course we have, otherwise we wouldn't be here).

Given the reality of a burning building, to say the firefighters are well-equipped to function in such an environment, or that most firefighters do not appear to be in any obvious pain while conducting their business, is to miss the point that a building is on fire. If the building were not on fire, the firefighters wouldn't need to be there in the first place, and they wouldn't require such complicated safety measures in order to endure the experience. What I am saying about knowledge, specifically self-awareness, is that it has set our species ablaze. Clearly, natural selection has favored those who could adapt, which is why rousseau is mostly correct about the average firefighter's demeanor, so to speak. I was hoping for a response to the larger point, which is that the knowledge that separates humans from other animals has created problems--onerous, pervasive, and insidious--that wouldn't exist otherwise.

 

[fromderinside]

Are we either of the creatures PyramidHead and rousseau posit? We are one or the other depending on our intuitions of where we are given goals.

There may be a deeper level than this "seesaw" back-and-forth quality. Everybody has ups and downs, some people are happy while others are not, I understand all of this. Depending on who (and when) you ask, life may be good or bad. Beyond all that, there are certain facts about conscious existence that are hard to dispute on empirical grounds. My friend rousseau claims that, despite these facts, people generally seem to feel OK about life. He may be right. But to say that humans have found a way to manage in a bad situation is different from saying the situation is not bad. I was talking about the situation we find ourselves in as a result of self-knowledge, not about whether we have devised/evolved successful strategies to cope with it (which of course we have, otherwise we wouldn't be here).

Given the reality of a burning building, to say the firefighters are well-equipped to function in such an environment, or that most firefighters do not appear to be in any obvious pain while conducting their business, is to miss the point that a building is on fire. If the building were not on fire, the firefighters wouldn't need to be there in the first place, and they wouldn't require such complicated safety measures in order to endure the experience. What I am saying about knowledge, specifically self-awareness, is that it has set our species ablaze. Clearly, natural selection has favored those who could adapt, which is why rousseau is mostly correct about the average firefighter's demeanor, so to speak. I was hoping for a response to the larger point, which is that the knowledge that separates humans from other animals has created problems--onerous, pervasive, and insidious--that wouldn't exist otherwise.

I dunno. If things are bad, a judgement by some authority, is not getting one to a place where one feels better a good thing? Reverse the presumption. If one is in a good place and gets one to a better place is that better or good or are we just moving things around to form perspective?

All this stuff about self awareness is something with which we entertain ourselves as evolved long memoried articulating beings. Does knowledge actually separate us from other beings. Isn't it that knowledge that we use to sit atop the predator ladder. Yeah, ladder. What you attempt, separation, is probably what Sabre tooths did just before their teeth became too long to work effectively.

 

[PyramidHead]

There may be a deeper level than this "seesaw" back-and-forth quality. Everybody has ups and downs, some people are happy while others are not, I understand all of this. Depending on who (and when) you ask, life may be good or bad. Beyond all that, there are certain facts about conscious existence that are hard to dispute on empirical grounds. My friend rousseau claims that, despite these facts, people generally seem to feel OK about life. He may be right. But to say that humans have found a way to manage in a bad situation is different from saying the situation is not bad. I was talking about the situation we find ourselves in as a result of self-knowledge, not about whether we have devised/evolved successful strategies to cope with it (which of course we have, otherwise we wouldn't be here).

Given the reality of a burning building, to say the firefighters are well-equipped to function in such an environment, or that most firefighters do not appear to be in any obvious pain while conducting their business, is to miss the point that a building is on fire. If the building were not on fire, the firefighters wouldn't need to be there in the first place, and they wouldn't require such complicated safety measures in order to endure the experience. What I am saying about knowledge, specifically self-awareness, is that it has set our species ablaze. Clearly, natural selection has favored those who could adapt, which is why rousseau is mostly correct about the average firefighter's demeanor, so to speak. I was hoping for a response to the larger point, which is that the knowledge that separates humans from other animals has created problems--onerous, pervasive, and insidious--that wouldn't exist otherwise.

I dunno. If things are bad, a judgement by some authority, is not getting one to a place where one feels better a good thing?

Of course, no doubt about that.

All this stuff about self awareness is something with which we entertain ourselves as evolved long memoried articulating beings. Does knowledge actually separate us from other beings. Isn't it that knowledge that we use to sit atop the predator ladder. Yeah, ladder. What you attempt, separation, is probably what Sabre tooths did just before their teeth became too long to work effectively.

Knowledge is not the only thing; and rather than a bright dividing line, there are probably (certainly?) degrees of self-awareness in all living things.

The sabretooth example is a good proxy for what I am claiming about self-awareness. Another nice one, from Zappfe, is the prehistoric deer who went extinct because its antlers were too heavy and pinned its head to the ground. Long memory and mental articulation of the type you describe may be such an evolved feature.

Zappfe said that up to a certain point on the self-awareness scale, our ancestors had fairly basic needs that could be satisfied by utilizing nature's resources. There was always a struggle, but in principle, there was some possible state of affairs in the environment that would scratch our itch as a species, be it food, shelter, dominance over rivals, reproductive success, the whole thing.

When self-knowledge reached its tipping point, suddenly there was an organism with new needs, psychological needs, that nature could no longer satisfy. Regardless of how variables in our environment were configured, the natural world staunchly refused to provide existential comfort, significance, immortality. These yearnings are the product of overgrown brains, according to Zappfe. Some of our ancestors went the way of the deer with its unwieldy antlers, or the tiger with teeth too big to maintain. The more successful humans invented all the coping strategies we still use today: denial, distraction, channeling our unsatisfied psychological appetites into something productive.

His point, and I mostly agree with him, is that we would be better off if we didn't have those appetites to begin with. fromderinside and rousseau are quite clearly correct that the problem of too much self-consciousness can be partly remedied, and that's a good thing when it happens. But evolution does not favor optimal solutions, just sufficient ones. I see no reason to doubt that while most people find ways to carve out their little strongholds against hostile odds, the entire effort is to remedy the symptoms of a great sickness that has befallen us.

 

[fromderinside]

fromderinside and rousseau are quite clearly correct that the problem of too much self-consciousness can be partly remedied, and that's a good thing when it happens. But evolution does not favor optimal solutions, just sufficient ones. I see no reason to doubt that while most people find ways to carve out their little strongholds against hostile odds, the entire effort is to remedy the symptoms of a great sickness that has befallen us.

My only caution here is that we are judging that we are doing too much or too little. Closed systems are usually missing things like the rest of the world for instance. Would you try to correct energy transfer within your system or try to rebalance energy I'm not sure this is possible in dynamic systems - exchange between your system and the outside world even though you don't know what's doing on out there? I prefer exploring from the latter. Doing so does o better job at getting as sufficiency rather than optimization. But, then maybe we are in agreement,

 

[Speakpigeon]

We didn't get to decide that for ourselves, unfortunately. My thinking on the matter is probably clear by now.

Yes, although it's still a relevant and interesting (albeit tangential to this conversation) question that we can still ask our-selves now.

When speaking about pain/pleasure, if you want to get down to the nitty gritty, neurophysiological roots of the two phe-nomena you need to understand a few things:

1) The brain is structured in a way that actively avoids pain at all times.

Given that pain is a common occurrence in most people's lives I just don't think that you say here makes much sense. Pain seems to be part of the normal fare of our experience of life and if so, taking a naturalistic approach, the brain would need to be structured to make us experience pain accordingly.

Sure the brain is probably organised such as to make us use specific behaviours to try to avoid the experience of pain, for example when we withdraw our hand from a fire, but to be able to do that the solution retained by evolution has been to make us experience pain in the first place. The extreme case is torture. Since the tortured is no longer at liberty to withdraw anything, he is left with experiencing whatever pain is inflicted on him by the torturer. The possibility of torture shows that the brain is not structured to avoid pain at all (except for a few individuals).

2) The level of 'stimulus' that every brain needs to not be bored is different

What this means in terms of pain is that 'contentedness' arises when all of our needs are being met, whatever those needs are. For one person that could mean dancing at a rave until 3 am after having a nice dinner, for another person that could mean having a tea and sitting in their back yard.

Further, this means that the example you've presented is a bad one because 12 hours of the most excruciating pain im-aginable does not have a corresponding opposite of 'unimaginable pleasure'.

Why is pleasure not the opposite of pain? You haven't justified this point at all. But it would be interesting to see how much pain people are prepared to endure in order to enjoy a certain amount of pleasure. Hard, or even impossible to test but interesting question.

Another observation is that pain doesn't go away like pleasure usually does. Presumably the behaviours rewarded by pleasure are of limited value for survival. A given organism can only eat so much food. Pain just seems to signal life-threatening bodily conditions. Can you even explain what is the use of pain exactly?

Some better examples would be:

- Would you put up with 3 really annoying years in school where you experience a fair bit of pain and stress, for 30 years of life security
- Would you put in three months of excruciating hard work, to get a lottery win in return and spend the rest of your life not working

Once you frame the problem like that, you realize that life isn't made up of a fluctuation between pain and pleasure, it's made up of a fluctuation between pain and lack of pain. And in (many) real life scenarios, at least in this century, most people experience contentment for the vast majority of their lives, with the odd moments of extra stress / pain.

So, again, it comes back to whether you consider a predominantly contented life valuable. Personally, I tend to think that life can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but there are other times when I'm absolutely awe-struck by the beauty of the universe, and being a part of it, and I'm incredibly glad to be alive.

Then you are just very lucky. Good for you.

Most people I've met in my life suffered from pains having various origins, physical, mental and/or social. The pain they suffered affected their behaviours and they usually couldn't make it disappear. Fifty shades of hell.

This is of course also true of many people I've never met. In poor countries, life is very hard anyway. Many countries still experience war (Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Gaza, Mali, Nigeria, Congo, Somalia etc.), cultural violence (South Africa, USA, China, Russia, Northern Ireland, South Korea etc.), political violence (North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, many Arab countries, Occupied Palestine etc.) or criminal violence (Mexico, Russia, China, Italy etc.). In developed countries, affluence is all relative for most people and there is a high level of mental and health problems, including the consequences of addiction (drugs, including alcohol and prescription drugs, junk food, pornography etc.). Many people are stressed 24/7 by job and family life. Most sufferers don't have the resource of adopting behaviours that would solve the problem, either because there are no such behaviours available short of killing yourself or because they are incapable of adopting them. Even in countries apparently all good, there is usually a degree of domestic violence, most often men on women, adults on children, institutional violence (prisons, retirement homes, army barracks, children on other children in schools) etc. etc. etc.

And that's just off the top of my head.

So, yes, count yourself as very lucky.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

As a species, we are encumbered with self-knowledge. Even the ignorant have far too much of it to avoid anxiety.

I think the main factor is social life. Knowledge is a by-product of our complex social life. We have substituted complex social relations to our intercourse with our environment. Social life protects us to a certain extent and certainly favour for now the survival of the species but each member of our societes has constantly to negotiate his way through life with other human beings. We depend on other people and this is the main source of anxiety for most people. Knowledge is really the bargaining chip and medium through which we get to organise life in society.

Perhaps one point should be considered. Our life is essentially a social life and a very complex social life. This kind of life has evolved so fast that perhaps our psychology is not entirely adapted to it. This may be due to the fact that it's gone very fast through the last 200,000 years, leaving no time for our biology to adapt, and the complex social life we have only requires that the social body be adapted to its environment, not necessarily most of us as individuals. So, in effect, many people suffer hell just because humanity as a whole does not suffer from that, at least not to the extent that it would go extinct.
Sacrificial lambs would be the expression I think.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

To illustrate my point, the question I pose is this: if you were given the opportunity to experience 12 hours of the richest pleasure imaginable followed by 12 hours of the most horrible pain imaginable

I can see how I could suffer 12 hours (and much, much more) of the most horrible pain but I don't think I could experience more than one or two hours of the most enjoyable pleasures. I would have to do in in installments. Maybe it's just me but just watching people in the streets I don't think most are different from me in this respect.

Also, enjoying any pleasure does require a certain amount of energy and if your brain runs short of that then you're not going to enjoy anything.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I envy you those experiences. I used to feel that way from time to time. Music can bring me there occasionally. But to come full circle to the topic at hand, I know too much now. It could be a phase, it could be a hat that I'm trying on. And nobody can prove that their view of life's value is the correct one. It's like when religious family members ask me how I can look around at the splendor of God's creation and not believe in a divine creator. Too late. I can't go back to thinking like that anymore. I know too much now.

In my view it's not knowledge per se that could cause anxiety, it's the different levels of anxiety your brain attaches to various areas of knowledge that may tilt the balance. It's more a question of outlook. Ultimately, however, I think it comes down to the fine details of one's physiology. Anxiety is much more of a medical condition than something to do with knowledge. Your level of anxiety is affected by drugs, including prescription drugs, diet, the overall level and variety of physical activities, the intercourse with other people, and probably the perceived range of current courses of action open to the subject. The less the possibilities, the more the anxiety. Knowledge works both ways: it tells you the many things that are in fact impossible (more anxiety) while providing actual avenues for action (less anxiety).
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Unless they are the recipients of uncannily good luck, humans must constantly divert resources to isolating, sublimating, or otherwise distracting themselves from suffering, which comes perfectly naturally and without any invitation at all.

This is the impression I get from performing rousseau's people-watching exercise. People don't seem to be in overwhelming pain. They seem zombie-like, like they're mentally retreating from the world in order to cope. Of course, maybe it's just not a very scientific exercise in the first place.

Life is the ultimate scientific experience...
EB

 

[Wiploc]

The stupid Ipad gave me the red line thingy, and I tried (I really did), but I couldn't go look it up because the last few times (yes, I'm learning), I lost everything I typed switching between tabs.

A partial solution: Copy what you've written so far to your clipboard before changing tabs.

 

[steve_bank]

There are always qualities. There is knowing and not knowing.