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Pain and pleasure....

shinoco
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Posted 09/12/07 - 03:47 PM:	#11
Emotions can cause pain, not a good thing. My little sister gets emotional about being short because people pick on her. You say we are an experiment gone wrong. Emotions can never be right, happiness is the equivelant of enjoying. To feel happiness emotionally is illusion. From what I've learned of emotions, it's a physical feeling people get. Unless people are calling thoughts emotions. Before we go further, I'd like some opinions on what emotions are, complete definitions please. I've never categorized any physical feelings or thoughts of my own as being emotions. All I know is what others have experienced, like my little sister. My mom also, she has been sad and I don't know the properties of it. Is it a physical feeling that is annoying? I don't get it.

loui100
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Posted 09/13/07 - 07:04 AM:	#12
shinoco wrote: Emotions can cause pain, not a good thing. My little sister gets emotional about being short because people pick on her. You say we are an experiment gone wrong. Emotions can never be right, happiness is the equivelant of enjoying. To feel happiness emotionally is illusion. From what I've learned of emotions, it's a physical feeling people get. Unless people are calling thoughts emotions. Before we go further, I'd like some opinions on what emotions are, complete definitions please. I've never categorized any physical feelings or thoughts of my own as being emotions. All I know is what others have experienced, like my little sister. My mom also, she has been sad and I don't know the properties of it. Is it a physical feeling that is annoying? I don't get it. Emotion is a complex neural process which constitutes a physical response to certain stimuli. For example seeing objects associated with pain or displeasure elicits the emotion fear or dislike or hate(often a mixture of those). These emotions put the brain in a certain state which influences our responses to internal or external stimuli. It is commonly believed that emotions are actually the very opposite of reason, they are subconscious, pre-defined and irrational constructs that react in such and no other way to a specific stimuli. Emotions often have somatic effects, for instance the emotion fear raises the heart beat and increases our perspiration. It also increases the level of andrenaline and so on. One might go to say that emotions have their own say in the decisive processes as does reason and our social values. Its hard, however, to say exactly what the influence is and how the emotions come to function in our brain.

Hand of God
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Posted 09/13/07 - 01:23 PM:	#13
shinoco wrote: You say we would canabalize. Some might. Due to my experiences with the paranormal, such as telepathy, I have come to believe I can earn an afterlife. Life on earth is short, and I can enjoy it to the fullest without doing anything immoral or evil at all. I believe that if I were starving I'd starve to death to earn a good afterlife rather than do cannabalistic things. What i said was people cannabolise OR do other "immoral" things (such as steal food/water, lie, rob others for money and so on). It is much easier saying that "I would not canabolise" but when you are in that situation, the situation where the pain of hunger and thirst is soo intense that you wish you were dead, I am sure that even with your mind set you would not know for certain if you would canabolise or not. You talk about after life, yet agian this is associated with the idea of pleasure, in this case, infinit pleasure in the afterlife. So what you do in "this" life-time (avoiding nefarious actions and being good/fair) is yet again due to selfishness, as in, your aspiration of feeling intense pleasure in the afterlife. So really, you are the same as the rest of use; to avoid pain and endeavour pleasure. shinoco wrote: What does it take to get what one wants? The path of pleasure can be made easier by doing evil things. One could steal to get what they want rather than earn it. Too many people could go to college and earn good money yet they go with low class jobs. One could scare another into staying in relationship by doing crazy and evil things so their source of sex dosen't leave. You say that the path of pleasure is made easier doing evil things, I say this is not necessarily true. I say this because one also feels pleasure by helping others, by making others dependent on them, by gaining respect and loyalty, you can think of all the examples yourself. You talk about unfairness, yes, life is unfair, but only unfair in the human eyes because we base everything on rationality, which is an error, for if it was not an error life would be fair. Think about it. shinoco wrote: Life isn't that long. I could do some evil like hurt ones feelings. I could find a stupid person and make them suicidal. That accomplishes no pleasure, unless one is a complete poseur. People pose as being evil in order to gain attention from other evil people. You might think this sort of thing is left to teenagers and immature people, yet adults continue to make other people feel bad about themselves. Listen, everyone is the way they are due to their genes, and their life experiences. One cannot choose what genes they have and thus that is limited. The experiences that one has can be divided into two: does that cannot be controlled, and those that apperntly we have a choice in. Straight forward we can see that just like how we cannot choose what genes we have, we cannot choose what experiences we encounter which we have no choice/control over. This leaves us with the experiences that we have a choice in, or that we can control. Yet, lets think about this, every choice that we make is due to either a priori (impulsive instinct) or due to choices from before or experiences from before. So really, even the choices that we tend to have control over are determined already, by our past, by our genes, and previous experiences. This goes back and back to the fundemental experiences that we had as a child which eventually gave rise to a large proportion of who we are today. But wait, did we have a say in them experiences? did we choose to be a girl or boy? to have the mum and dad that we have? to be born in the country, ethics, and religious societies that we initially were? the answers are no, no, and no. My point being, you are who you are, with your present state of mind due to your genes, upbringing and experiences, which overall you had no controll over. Thus I do not differentiate you from, lets say, a murderer, for he/she, just like you or me, had no no control in who we are today; the past makes who we are today, and who we are today influences how we act tomorow. A difficult concept, but think really hard and you mite understand it.
"I do not seek joy, but I only seek the truth, from which joy automatically follows" "I Love thee, because I Love God" "We do what God is" "Good and Evil are but only two words for perfection" "I am who I am, you are who you are, and they are who they are, that is all and all is just"

Hand of God
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Posted 09/13/07 - 01:35 PM:	#14
loui100 wrote: I don't know much about the bacteria, but I know for certainty that plants DO behave, to a certain extent, accordingly to the environment. An example of that would be that they "outreach" their branches to the source of light. That's a conditioned response and yet they have no nervous system. They can adapt to the environment and they neither need intellect nor emotions for that to happen. I think what I'm tring to say is that, while being superior in terms of our intellect, emotions themselves aren't in any way superior to other types of adaption. That an animal runs away when its adrenaline reaches a certain level doesn't mean that plants and bacterias don't have their own means of survival. Of course they do, because evolution made them so, emotions are just another means of adapting the species for life on Earth(or beyond?). Try to be open minded; if a man came runing towards you with an axe, would you not run and scream like a lunatic? If a man came runing towards a tree with an axe, would the tree run and scream like a lunatic? Yes, all living beings have their own secret weapons for surviving, but my proposition is that the emotions, the sensations of pain and pleasure is the greates weapon created by the genes on earth. Edited by Hand of God on 09/14/07 - 03:32 AM
"I do not seek joy, but I only seek the truth, from which joy automatically follows" "I Love thee, because I Love God" "We do what God is" "Good and Evil are but only two words for perfection" "I am who I am, you are who you are, and they are who they are, that is all and all is just"

Hand of God
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Posted 09/13/07 - 01:37 PM:	#15
jy, I shall respond to you soon.
"I do not seek joy, but I only seek the truth, from which joy automatically follows" "I Love thee, because I Love God" "We do what God is" "Good and Evil are but only two words for perfection" "I am who I am, you are who you are, and they are who they are, that is all and all is just"

loui100
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Posted 09/14/07 - 07:29 AM:	#16
Hand of God wrote: loui100 wrote: I don't know much about the bacteria, but I know for certainty that plants DO behave, to a certain extent, accordingly to the environment. An example of that would be that they "outreach" their branches to the source of light. That's a conditioned response and yet they have no nervous system. They can adapt to the environment and they neither need intellect nor emotions for that to happen. I think what I'm tring to say is that, while being superior in terms of our intellect, emotions themselves aren't in any way superior to other types of adaption. That an animal runs away when its adrenaline reaches a certain level doesn't mean that plants and bacterias don't have their own means of survival. Of course they do, because evolution made them so, emotions are just another means of adapting the species for life on Earth(or beyond?). Try to be open minded; if a man came runing towards you with an axe, would you not run and scream like a lunatic? If a man came runing towards a tree with an axe, would the tree run and scream like a lunatic? Yes, all living beings have their own secret weapons for surviving, but my proposition is that the emotions, the sensations of pain and pleasure is the greates weapon created by the genes on earth. I think you might be overestimating the role of emotions in all this. Emotions are just the processes that put your MIND in such a way where you are inclined to flee, as in rise your andrenaline level etc. Its the fact that we have actual legs and a mind to control these accordingly that constitutes our own survival ability. WE have a pair of legs and a mind, emotions are just small parts of the mind. Certain plants have thorns sticking to them and actually make use of the fact that animals feel pain and learn to stay away from such plants. An argument for pain and pleasure being somewhat superior is the fact that these are somewhat more universal, we react accordingly to every sign of our body being in physical distress. But again, pain and pleasure just comes along with the whole mind-body set. And I agree, a mind is superior because it gives more adaption values for the individual.

seopostive2
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Posted 11/05/09 - 02:15 AM:	#17
Thank you, very interesting to read, you should be proud of your post. I was really enjoying to check your messages from time to time.
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Banno
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Posted 11/05/09 - 03:29 AM:	#18
Ah, paragraphs. A forgotten art form, I'm afraid. Cant a stand a 50 line one-paragraph OP.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

psychotick
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Posted 11/05/09 - 08:20 AM:	#19
Hi, I think your model of human behaviour and feelings is too simplistic. We have emotions for sure, and pleasure and pain are pretty basic, powerful feelings, but I'm not sure they qualify as genuine emotions like love and fear in their own right. They're more simple sensations, one that we want more of, one that we want to avoid. But in the human mind we have a whole bunch more things that get involved in descision making, intelligence, experiences, morals etc. The question as to which of these generates what descision, what behaviour, depends completely on the circumstance and the person. For example, a man comes running up to you with bits of paper in his hand which he wants to give you. Your intelligence and experience will tell you whether its money or summons, and then this combined with your experiences of the world and your life within it and your morals will tell you to an extent how you should 'feel' about it. For example if its money and you know it can buy you things like food and shelter, then a man giving you money will probably make you feel happy - unless of course your twisted personality says that he's really an arrogant man with too much money who thinks you're a poor beggar, and then that damnable sense of pride may kick in and tell you to tell him to go away before you beat him to death, there's that anger. The same action, the same understanding of that action, but a different perception of that action based on personal values and life history, leading to completely different emotions. Of course without the intelligence you wouldn't even have recognised the pieces of paper so the thought of someone giving you money would make absolutely no impact on your emotional world. On the third or fourth hand if your intelligence had told you the pieces of paper were summons to court you might have then felt proud about the chance to do your civic duty, angry about the possibility that someone was suing you, pleased by the idea that you might finally have a chance to unleash those 500 dollar per hour lawyers sitting in your next office, curious as to what its all about, frightened that they're going to take away your new sports car, you may even find it all hysterically funny as the doctor's just told you you have six months to live and so you'll never even see the courtroom. Maybe pleasure and pain were those initial basic feelings / sensations along with hunger I presume, but we are way more complex then your model allows for. As for genes and wanting to spread them far and wide, hence the pleasure, I know at least one person who has had vasectomies simply so they can enjoy a varied sex life. I know a lot more who have adopted children or moved in with others with children, raising them, presumably taking pleasure in the act, but not spreading their genes. How does that work? Then of course there are those unfortunate people who take pleasure in feeling pain, I'm not even sure how they fit into your model. Cheers.

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