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Pain and pleasure....

Hand of God
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Posted 09/09/07 - 12:42 PM: Subject: Pain and pleasure....	#1
I am here to propose (and not impose) my ideology, which may be new or not, and would like to see how others who are familiar with philosophical concepts think about the concepts of pain and pleasure. I have convinced myself that every (intended) action is driven by two unseen forces: to avoid pain and to endeavour pleasure. I have, in my mind, categorised ALL emotions under the sensations of pain or pleasure. I belive that the emotions (how ever many there are) are all different manifestations and intensities of the sensations of pain and pleaure, which then makes these two sensations the fundemental or rudimentary feelings of all emotions. Why have the genes favoured a nervous system and brain, besides the fact that a nervous system and brain significantly enhances our ability to respond to external stimuli in super fast speeds and have the ability of predicitin certain outcomes which is very advantagous, I belive there is another extremly important advantage that we living things with a nervous system have, which ultimately increases the overall survival rate of us, the machines in which our masters, the genes, reside in. I shall use an example of comparison to emphasise my idea: lets compare a bacterium (or plant) to a human, the bacteriums (or plant) clearly does not constitute a nervous system, and thus fails to have the advantages that I already stated living things with a nervous system have over otheres whcih do not, yet there is another disadvantage that the bacterium (or plant) has compared to, lets say, us; we humans obey the bidings of our genes with PASSION, governed by the sensations of pain and pleasure whereas the bacterium does not sense pain nor pleasure and this does not do the bidings of its masters (its genes) with PASSION, this is a critical point that is easily over lookd. The genes did not directly code for the sensations of pain and pleasure to govern our decisions and actions, which ultimately increases their survival, instead the genes coded for the brain and from that came the driving forces of life (our life). It just happens that most of the things that impair or impede the survival and replication of our genes is associated with pain (e.g. a damage to our body, in which the genes reside within and seek refuge and feeling the painful sensation of hunger or thirst) and most situations that increase the survival and replication of our genes have been associated with pleasure (e.g. sexual intecourse). It all seems to be well for the genes, doesnt it? well its not that simple, you see, WE do not see our genes or know of them or do the biding of our genes DIRECTL, we do so INDIRECTLY by avoiding the sensation of "pain" and aspiring "pleasure". This is the catch, because of this we have come to "abuse" the sensation of pleasure (which was initially set to help the genes) for we only know pleasure and pain, nothing else, it is how our masters designed us, an experiment gone wrong. We take drugs, we do sports which are dangerous or can be fatal, we take risks, we smoke our lungs to ashs, we fight and put our lives at risk for the fun of it and so on, you know the examples, I dont have to carry on. Why do we do all these things? becuase there is some pleasure associated with all of them, the sensation of pride, satisfaction, acceptance, releasing anger and so on... it has backfired on our masters, but yet most of us go on to produce children at some time in our life (regardles of what we do, how we abuse our bodies and put our masters at risk), we still try our best to survive, to eat and drink, to keep alive....thus the experiment has not totally gone wrong, and it will never reach that stage, Why? because there will always be some of use reproducing, furthermore the endeavour of protecting yourslef is one and same as protecting your masters, your genes, and as we all endeavour to survive (and the majority also endeavour to reproduce) the genes still remain, and will remain, as the masters. Unless...well, Il leave it there for now, one needs its brain to rest after the long introduction
"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"

wuliheron
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Posted 09/09/07 - 06:40 PM:	#2
Calm and quiet will conquer the world. Lao Tzu Simple contentment is vastly under rated by our melodramatic societies.

jy
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Posted 09/10/07 - 02:35 AM:	#3
I'm not sure that our advantage with humans is that we follow our genes with passion. If you believe that all our emotions are generated by our genes you are wrong. Look at Prozac for example. Also if passion is just blindly following what our genes encode us to do then, a bacterium without the capacity to understand what is going but is more based on an input causing an output kind of life, will be just as passionate as us, human beings. I think that what makes humans so "special" (without appealing to arrogance of any sort) is that we can override just what our genes are encoding us to do. We have culture and we can add to this basis of genes with knowledge that has been passed through the generations as culture, science, art, history, or whatever you may call it. Much more information than what can be passed on just through genes can be passed on through this form of the old teaching the young and then the young striving to find out more truths about the world that we live in.
Death is the only certainty of life. Birth is the only unaccountable requirement of life. Within these boundaries may we choose wisely and prosper.

HumanBeast
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Posted 09/10/07 - 11:13 AM:	#4
You are an Epicurean. Epicureans avoid pain and seek pleasure through food, sex, and entertainment. It's good thought for survival until you consider the area of pain.

Hand of God
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Posted 09/11/07 - 01:42 PM:	#5
jy wrote: if passion is just blindly following what our genes encode us to do then, a bacterium without the capacity to understand what is going but is more based on an input causing an output kind of life, will be just as passionate as us, human beings. No, I shall attempt to make you understand what I mean: a bacterium moves around at all times in random directions, yet it has receptors which direct it toward food and oway from poision, yet again in random directions; a bacterium which is very close to, lets say, a source of food may travel many times longer than necessary to reach that food due ot its random directions which eventually divert it to the food source, down the concentration gradient of the source molecules. The bacteria are blind, if they are hungry, or even starving, they would not move any faster than normal or act in desperate ways to get food. We humans, on the other hand, becuase of the sensations of pleasure and pain, when we are extremely starving we would canabolise or commit other "immoral" acts to get rid of the pain, in other words, we do the biding of our genes with passion. I hope this has been sufficient for you to start thinking other examples for yourslef, I shall not spoon feed you. jy wrote: I think that what makes humans so "special" (without appealing to arrogance of any sort) is that we can override just what our genes are encoding us to do. We do not do the bidings of out genes directly; the genes have (through milions of years) made machines that run on the sensations of pain and pleasure, it is these two sensations (of which there are many manifestations and intensities) that we obey our genes. For example, although you can overdie your genes to cut yourself or harm yourslef (their machine) you shall feel pain, which may put you off at doing it again. Everytime you eat, drink, protect yourself, and reproduce you are doing the bidings of your genes, that is; you are permitting them to survive and eventually replicate via sexual intercourse. Yes, we do take drugs or do other activities that harm us, and thus our genes, but as long as one is alive and able to reproduce, they yet are useful to their masters, their genes, and so masters they shall remain. jy wrote: We have culture and we can add to this basis of genes with knowledge that has been passed through the generations as culture, science, art, history, or whatever you may call it. Much more information than what can be passed on just through genes can be passed on through this form of the old teaching the young and then the young striving to find out more truths about the world that we live in. Art, science and so forth are only the hobbies of the machines, us. You see, the genes have took a gamble, to make an incredible organ which was driven by pain and pleasure which would inevetibaly do their bidings extremely efficiently, yet, the magnificent organ, our brain may have a chance to become too concious of itself and its surroudning. A chance that the genes took because they are blind and unconcious, they cannot forsee the future. Yes, we humans (or our minds) have come up with many hobbies which are still, and always be associated with the sensations of pleasure or less commonly pain. This makes no difference to the genes, however. You see, the genes are prepared to co-operate with eachother at the level of the organism (machines/us) to gain advantage at their selfish level. Which is why society has come to exist; there is more chances of a human individual to survive in a society such as in london than independently in a wood or jungle in britain. Do you see how the "cooperation" is really yet due to selfishness? I think that you do.
"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"

shinoco
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Posted 09/11/07 - 05:24 PM:	#6
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 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. 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. I really despise people who have something against stupid people. Some people ARE limited, and by making them feel bad people accomplish nothing for themselves.

jy
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Posted 09/12/07 - 01:17 AM:	#7
Sorry I have not learned how to use that quoting thing so I'll just do so using non-direct quotes. Thanks for clearing up this passion that you were talking about. In that sense I believe that, yes, passion can only be generated by having intellectual capacity. Yet the example that you are giving me seems to correlate the increase or the emergence of passion to do with the capability of sensing things in more diverse ways. Another point is that the word passion itself anthropomorphises any animal we try to attribute this characteristic to. Also your example of cannibalism seems absurd to me. Imagine two twins (identical genes) were grown up, one in a very religious setting and learned that cannibalism as a heinous and forbidden act. On the other hand the other twin grew up with the Incas and practised killing people and ritualistic cannibalism regularly. If you were to put both these individuals in the situation that you have provided, I have no doubt that one individual will more likely eat the other. So it is not just the genes that contribute to this passion that you are talking about. One might be passionately hungry to kill and eat the other guy, whereas the other religious twin will more likely be passionate about what will his afterlife be. This will all be not due to their genes but due to the environment in which they were brought up. Another reason that the genes is not our master is that look at martyrs or people who choose to not have offspring. This goes directly against how we should be acting if our primary goal in life was to increase the likelihood of our genes being passed on. Instead, martyrs or people who plan on not having children may want to leave a mark on humanity not by having sex as many times as they can in order to proliferate their genes but promote something inside other peoples brains. A martyr will be doing this for the spread of his religion and the guy who decides not to have babies may become a teacher and pass on knowledge and his way of thinking to his pupils. Genes as our master is a too simplistic view of the way we live as humans right now. If this were the case, once we have perfected gene therapy (altering our own genes) we will no longer have a master. What then, you might ask? I agree that we enjoy pleasure more than pain. I also have no problem with us acting in selfish ways. I think you are may be influenced a lot by Richard Dawkin's writings. Yes he does try to reduce everything down to continuation of the genes that we carry. That is essentially Darwinism which I believe is the best theory for how we came to be who we are right now. However, don't forget that he talks about memes (the first e has a hat on it which I can't type). A meme is a characteristic which is above the gene. It is why cultures exist, why people who identify with this culture not only look similar to each other (genes) but speak the same language, wear similar clothes and have similar beliefs (due to memes being passed down generations). I think that I don't disagree the importance of genes to you, but its just that I believe your reductionist thinking is may be slightly too simple. PS I don't know why shinoco is suddenly on about making dumb people feel bad. I think dumb people have a more simplistic view on life so cannot feel as bad as intellectuals but that's a discussion for another thread.
Death is the only certainty of life. Birth is the only unaccountable requirement of life. Within these boundaries may we choose wisely and prosper.

loui100
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Posted 09/12/07 - 07:03 AM:	#8
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?). So all in all, I just can't agree that emotions are in any way superior to other means of adapting such as the example I have mentioned. I think a strong argument would be to simply point out the fact that instead of every species evolving into an intelligent organism like humanity, plants still remain plants. If one were to consider emotions as a crucial stage in evolution, it would happen to more than one species, I suppose. Instead, I believe emotions to be just another branch evolution can take, none is any more superior than the other, both are just diffirent means of adapting to various kinds of environment.

shinoco
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Posted 09/12/07 - 02:35 PM:	#9
I don't assume how bad someone might feel. I think some people go on power trips and cannot stop themselves from bothering someone else. Thus kids have to suffer. Why can my little sister turn on the radio and accidentally hear sexual lyrics. This can stunt her growth yet adults need their music so they gain their pleasure while a kid is influenced to have kids at a young age. All I know is americas media is terrible and while some gain pleasure from it others get pain. Not a good thing.

jy
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Posted 09/12/07 - 03:31 PM:	#10
Yes, I agree that not everything on TV these days is what you could call suitable for kids. But then again, I think it's a growing trend that cannot be stopped. I'm not sure exactly what it is but may be it ain't that detrimental to your kids growth ay. Just look at the news, I'm sure you will found more disturbing stuff on the news than on the radio, unless it was like Howard Stern or something haha
Death is the only certainty of life. Birth is the only unaccountable requirement of life. Within these boundaries may we choose wisely and prosper.

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