My Final and Most Convincing Argument for Hedonism

[MozartLink]

My Absolute Convincing Argument for Hedonism (Pleasure=Good, Suffering=Bad, Everything Else in Life=Neutral (Neither Truly Good or Bad)

I have now come up with a new explanation as to how all our thoughts are neutral (neither truly good or bad) and how pleasure and suffering are the only true good and bad things in life. Let's pretend that you did not have the ability to perceive meaning, then words and phrases would be nothing more than words and phrases. One person you meet would not mean anything different from another person you meet. One shade of color would be no different than another, etc. The only difference would be that they would be different stimuli and nothing more. Therefore, this also applies to our own perceptions of meaning themselves since they are also nothing more than just different perceptions in of themselves and it has nothing to do with us attributing any neutral value or any other value to them. I am not saying that those perceptions are meaningless because they do have meaning since that is obviously what our perceptions are in the first place. I am saying something different here. Allow me to explain:

Our thoughts/perceptions are no different than any other "neutral" part of our brain such as the parts of our brain that make us move, breathe, blink, etc. They are only different in the sense that they are different functions and nothing more. If you were to look at one shade of color vs another, then yes they would obviously be different. But they are the same in the sense that they both neither feel good or bad. Therefore, this also holds true for our thoughts and perceptions as well in that they are also no different than any other "neutral" part of our brain or any other object for that matter since they don't feel good or bad. But they are different functions and such nonetheless. What separates our feelings of good and bad (pleasure and suffering) from other "neutral" things in life and what makes them the true good and bad things in life is that if you were to perceive something as being good in your life without your pleasure, then you could obviously say that perception is good since that is what it is (a good perception). But like I said before, that version of good (perception) is no different than any other "neutral" part of our brain or any other object.

Therefore, that perception would only be good in a neutral (fake) sense which means it is not truly good. But the version of good that comes from our pleasure in which we would be able to experience pleasure as a good feeling even if we had no knowledge or intelligence to attribute any value to that feeling, this version of good is the true good since it is the only other version of good there is besides the version of good that comes from our thoughts/perceptions and moral values. I said that the version of good that comes from our thoughts/perceptions and our moral values are no different than any other "neutral" thing in life which makes those said thoughts/perceptions and moral values neutral. Therefore, the true version of good would have to be the version that comes from our pleasure. Same thing for the true version of bad which would be suffering. As I said before, pleasure is a version of good since it always feels good. It always feels good even if you were to have no intelligence or knowledge to attribute any good values and such to it. Therefore, this means that pleasure is a version of good in of itself that is independent of our thoughts/perceptions and moral values. Pleasure always feels good and suffering always feels bad. People who say that pleasure feels bad or that suffering feels good, these people are lying. It is only the pleasure that is derived from their suffering that feels good to them and it is only the suffering that is derived from their pleasure that feels bad to them.

Now one might say that pleasure and suffering do not feel good or bad. Rather, they might say something such as that they feel pleasant and unpleasant and that they are not what we would define as "good" or "bad." But how we define something as good or bad comes through not saying that those things are neutral. For example, one would say that his/her life is truly good even without his/her pleasure and that everything in his/her life including his/her own perceptions are not neutral. But since they are neutral as I've said before since they are no different than any other neutral thing in life, then they are not what we would define as truly good or bad. So the true version of good and bad would have to come from our pleasure and suffering since they are the only things in life that are truly different from everything else in that they are the only things that feel pleasant (good) and unpleasant (bad).

One more given example here of how pleasure and suffering are the only true good and bad things in life is that if someone were to feel strong love for someone (love being a form of pleasure since it is a good feeling), then his/her actions and personality expressions would be genuinely expressed. But if you were to have anhedonia (absence of pleasure), then if you were to perceive love towards someone else and show actions/personality expressions of love towards that person, then those said actions and personality expressions would not be genuinely expressed. They would instead be "forced" (faked). For example, if you feel excited about something great in your life, then your expressions of excitement would be genuine. But a person with anhedonia would have to force (fake) his/her expressions. They would, again, be faked expressions and would not be genuine at all. Some people with anhedonia might claim that they have genuinely helped others and made the best of their lives. But this would only be because they have forced themselves to do so since they knew that it was the right thing to do anyway. Also, they are only fooling themselves into perceiving that things are good in their lives despite their anhedonia when the fact of the matter is that all those perceptions are neutral as I've said before. These people with anhedonia then act on those decoy perceptions and claim that their said actions/personality expressions are genuine when the fact of the matter is that they are also decoys. It's through our feelings that our personalities and actions are genuinely expressed and it's only through our feelings that our profoundness, innocence, and greatness becomes genuine. Otherwise, if we didn't have feelings at all, then we would be nothing neither truly good or bad and our lives would be neither truly good or bad either.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

The thing about pleasure is thus. If you ask a man what does he find pleasurable, he will say work. Or he will say sex. Or he will say living in the now.

Why does he say those things? Because it is like a flow, consciousness washed away into a stream of nothingness, thoughtlessness. In a way, thought itself is suffering.

In fact your statement about anhedonia being such an awful burden, driving you to suicide, implies that that thought is suffering, and not neutral, or that it is neutral and that neutral is suffering too.

Question is are you really anedonic because I don't think you are, from your other posts it seems lovey-dovey emotions disgust you and you choose not to embrace them. You are anedonic in the sense that you find emotions unpleasurable, but not that you don't have emotions.

You don't find them pleasurable because unlike the others, your emotions don't reduce your awareness to nothing, nor does it transform you in any discernible way. And to become nothing, or at the very least, the very act of transforming, is the definition of all pleasure.

[MozartLink]

The thing about pleasure is thus. If you ask a man what does he find pleasurable, he will say work. Or he will say sex. Or he will say living in the now.

Why does he say those things? Because it is like a flow, consciousness washed away into a stream of nothingness, thoughtlessness. In a way, thought itself is suffering.

In fact your statement about anhedonia being such an awful burden, driving you to suicide, implies that that thought is suffering, and not neutral, or that it is neutral and that neutral is suffering too.

Question is are you really anedonic because I don't think you are, from your other posts it seems lovey-dovey emotions disgust you and you choose not to embrace them. You are anedonic in the sense that you find emotions unpleasurable, but not that you don't have emotions.

You don't find them pleasurable because unlike the others, your emotions don't reduce your awareness to nothing, nor does it transform you in any discernible way. And to become nothing, or at the very least, the very act of transforming, is the definition of all pleasure.

Now first off, I will keep all my arguments and such regarding hedonism restrained to this topic only from now on. Now as for what I mean when I say pleasure, I mean the actual feeling (hedonistic version) of pleasure. That version is the only good thing in life.

As for our thoughts, thoughts in of themselves are not suffering. They are neutral since they neither feel good or bad. It is only the pleasure and suffering that are induced by those thoughts that are truly good and bad. My anhedonia in of itself is actually neutral since it is just simply an absence of pleasure and nothing more. But my nonacceptance towards living such a life in which there is nothing truly good about me and my life without my pleasure, this is what is causing me depression (suffering).

Pleasure and suffering can be defined in different ways by different people. But again, what I am saying here is that it is only the feelings of pleasure and suffering that are the only true good and bad things in life. Also, I do value feelings of pleasure immensely and am not who you just described me as. All my posts have been about how important pleasure is for life, how you are nothing without it, and how much I need it back in my life. I do have anhedonia.

I will continue to explain more supporting arguments for hedonism after this post and after you reply back to it.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

[MozartLink]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

I think it might be a negative symptom of schizophrenia since that is what my doctor (psychiatrist) told me.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

I think it might be a negative symptom of schizophrenia since that is what my doctor (psychiatrist) told me.

You think? That means you aren't sure.

Please go deeper, describe your thoughts, emotions, the inner machinations of your mind, and what not.

[MozartLink]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

I think it might be a negative symptom of schizophrenia since that is what my doctor (psychiatrist) told me.

You think? That means you aren't sure.

Please go deeper, describe your thoughts, emotions, the inner machinations of your mind, and what not.

In that case, I will continue on here. Here is one last convincing argument I came up with supporting hedonism:

There are 3 pleasure states: negative (hopelessness), neutral (anhedonia), and positive (feeling pleasure). The negative state of pleasure (depression), depression is also a natural response by evolution to discourage our survival aside from it being something such as a chemical imbalance or the result of a brain abnormality. It warns us when something is going wrong in our lives which is the reason why we become depressed when something bad happens in our lives such as the loss of a loved one, etc. When we are encouraged for survival, that would be defined as having genuine good perceptions in life such as to want to live and make the best of our lives, help others, etc. This encouragement can only be defined through our pleasure since it is only our feelings that genuinely encourage and discourage our survival. They are the only things that genuinely make us perceive our lives as either being good and worth living or as bad and not worth living at all. But if you are in a state of anhedonia (absence of pleasure), then this should also tell you that your life is not worth living at all either since how we normally function as human beings would be through relying on our perception of good to make our lives good and worth living. That neutral perception should then send a depressive signal to your brain and then make you and your life bad and of truly even less worth now. As I said before, in a state of anhedonia, our good and bad perceptions are not genuine and is just our mind's irrational way of fooling ourselves into thinking that we are having genuine good and bad perceptions without having any pleasure or suffering in our lives at the moment.

I said that our encouragement for survival in life can only be defined by having genuine good perceptions. Therefore, since depression discourages our survival, then this means that we cannot genuinely perceive us and our lives as being good and worth living while in a state of significant depression since depression shuts down our good perceptions. Therefore, depression shuts down our good perceptions in a negative sense in that we would have bad perceptions, anhedonia simply neutralizes our perceptions in which we neither genuinely perceive our lives as being good or bad without pleasure and suffering, and pleasure is what defines our genuine good perceptions in life.

When a person is depressed, he/she might say to his/herself in a depressive mood (tonality) that his/her life is still good and worth living. He/she might very well continue on to pursue his/her dreams and goals in life even while still feeling depressed. But those good perceptions are all decoys without our pleasure as I've said before. The person's depression has shut down his/her genuine good perceptions in life. But he/she is now doing nothing more than just simply saying to his/herself that his/her life is still good and worth living anyway and just forcing his/herself to live life anyway. So now this person is just simply being fooled by words and phrases alone when there is no genuine good perception at all from those words and phrases while he/she is in a state of depression.

On one side of the spectrum you have people who are so severely depressed that they don't want to do anything who find no good value in their lives. They can hardly function and can hardly want to do things in their lives at all. These types of people are so severe that they can never bring themselves to make the best of their lives and such. These types of people need electric shock treatment. But on the other side of the spectrum you have people who are so happy and excited in life that they are doing all sorts of great things in life. So based on that, you can clearly see how our level of pleasure defines our level of good perception in life. But even if it were somehow a proven fact that you and your life are truly good even in a state of depression/anhedonia, then what good is that going to do for you? What is the use of you and your life being good if you are not even allowed to genuinely perceive it as being good?

Now our perceptions do define how we feel. But it's our feelings that make those said perceptions genuinely good or bad only from the perspective of those feelings alone and not from the perspective of those perceptions (thoughts) alone which are all neutral in of themselves as I've said before. So it's just how we feel independent of our thoughts that genuinely makes us and our lives good or bad. I also realize that there is one other emotion which would be empathy. There are also 3 states of empathy as well: negative (in which you feel bad such as you feeling sorry for hurting someone else), neutral (no empathy in which one might also just simply help others out anyway through just thoughts and such alone), and positive (which would be a feeling of pleasure in which you feel good for helping someone else). Here again, the negative state defines us and our lives as being bad and genuinely defines our perceptions as bad, the neutral defines us and our lives as being neither good or bad and our perceptions as being neither good or bad without our pleasure, and the positive state is what genuinely defines us and our lives as being genuinely good and defines our perceptions as being genuinely good.

In conclusion, I am making these arguments to try and help find better cures and treatments for anhedonia and depression. If people would realize that pleasure and suffering are the only true good and bad things in life, then they would be much more inclined to find better treatments and a cure. Too many people are just accepting of suffering due to them thinking that they are still good people even with much suffering and/or an absence of pleasure in their lives. But I wish to change this mindset so that people would then truly realize once and for all the pleasure and suffering really are the only true good and bad things in life. Not only am I trying to find better treatments and cures for depression and anhedonia, but also for suffering in general. My hedonistic values would also encourage others to find better treatments and cures for suffering in general as well. This would also even include mortality since living in an eternal blissful life of no suffering is the only greatest life there is and is the one and only thing that would make you the greatest person.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Dude I asked for a personalized description of what happens in your mind, to YOU specifically. Your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, etc.

What you wrote sounds like a psychological muse for other people.

"On one side of the spectrum you have people who are so severely depressed that they don't want to do anything who find no good value in their lives. They can hardly function and can hardly want to do things in their lives at all. These types of people are so severe that they can never bring themselves to make the best of their lives and such. These types of people need electric shock treatment."

Wow. I suppose you advocate blood-letting as well? What a laugh.

[MozartLink]

Dude I asked for a personalized description of what happens in your mind, to YOU specifically. Your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, etc.

What you wrote sounds like a psychological muse for other people.

"On one side of the spectrum you have people who are so severely depressed that they don't want to do anything who find no good value in their lives. They can hardly function and can hardly want to do things in their lives at all. These types of people are so severe that they can never bring themselves to make the best of their lives and such. These types of people need electric shock treatment."

Wow. I suppose you advocate blood-letting as well? What a laugh.

I'm not sure what you mean here. I already did explain my personal thoughts because I explained how pleasure is the only good thing about me and my life through my hedonistic arguments. As for the electric shock treatment, I would have to actually replace that term with TMS which would be a much safer form of treatment. This is a form of magnetic stimulation is what I am considering having done on me if my anhedonia does not seem to recover.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

I'm not sure what you mean here. I already did explain my personal thoughts because I explained how pleasure is the only good thing about me and my life through my hedonistic arguments. As for the electric shock treatment, I would have to actually replace that term with TMS which would be a much safer form of treatment. This is a form of magnetic stimulation is what I am considering having done on me if my anhedonia does not seem to recover.

When a person is depressed, he/she might say to his/herself in a depressive mood (tonality) that his/her life is still good and worth living. He/she might very well continue on to pursue his/her dreams and goals in life even while still feeling depressed. But those good perceptions are all decoys without our pleasure as I've said before. The person's depression has shut down his/her genuine good perceptions in life. But he/she is now doing nothing more than just simply saying to his/herself that his/her life is still good and worth living anyway and just forcing his/herself to live life anyway. So now this person is just simply being fooled by words and phrases alone when there is no genuine good perception at all from those words and phrases while he/she is in a state of depression.

Not at all personal. You seem to be projecting upon others, whilst keeping the maximal distance away from yourself. Exactly the opposite of what I asked, I asked for your personal thoughts and machinations. Try again.
Try more like a diary this time. I suspect you are female, so a diary should be no problem for you.

Speaking of females and electro-shock therapy...A long time ago I was at a mental hospital and there was a girl a few doors down from me who they thought was delusional. They were giving her electro-shock therapy everyday so when she came out I tried to be nice to her and comfort her, and befriend her. Of course she spat in my face and called me rude and hateful things, insulting me and saying very hurtful things to me. These weren't the ramblings of an insane woman, but the hurtful things she said were very sane and collected sounding, she knew very well I was a fellow patient trying to be nice to her, and she could care less, as long as she made me feel more like shit, more worthless that I already did. At that moment I knew her shock therapy was the result of Divine Karma. That very night, when her screams woke me up in the middle of the night, I was no longer bothered. I was incredibly aroused, and at the same time, couldn't stop laughing, it was so humorous actually. Whenever I think about it I think about the scene where Joker does shock therapy to the Robin and it makes me laugh.

Funny as it is, did it ever cure her from her delusions? Absolutely not. It wasn't like she was even that suicidal, or cut up her body like marilyn manson, they just thought her delusional. You know if that's all it takes for shock-therapy, I firmly believe that most religious tards (especially jihadists and phobic christians) could benefit from some "shock-therapy" as well. Lol!

[David Handeye]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

I think it might be a negative symptom of schizophrenia since that is what my doctor (psychiatrist) told me.

Is it? Why, has schizophrenia positive ones?

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Please describe your anhedonia please.

I think it might be a negative symptom of schizophrenia since that is what my doctor (psychiatrist) told me.

Is it? Why, has schizophrenia positive ones?

Paranoia is a survival mechanism. Without it, you become more vulnerable.

[David Handeye]

Also paranoia has nothing of positive, imho.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Also paranoia has nothing of positive, imho.

What part about survival mechanism and keeping you safe is not positive?

[David Handeye]

Survival mechanisms have much to do with feelings' sphere, like fear. Paranoia is a disturb of personhood, Stalin was paranoic, Mao was paranoic, Erode il Grande was paranoic, Commodo was paranoic, Hitler Caesars Mary the bloody Pilato
They certainly were not vulnerable.