SpheresOfBalance wrote:MotzartLink, you're out of your tree! I figure you're either here for delivering shock value, or flexing your muscles. A person with some of these attributes: small, young, tattooed, having piercings, wears sports cloths, or any other such thing that makes you look larger than you actually are, as a means to ward off any potential conflict, like a brightly colored poisonous tree frog, that anyone could step on.
Your reasoning, if you actually buy into it, (though I sense a swirling vortex of internal conflict in your hemispheres), is not the way to deal with such fears.
Every human fears death, or they'd stick a loaded perfectly operating .45 cal with it's safety off, in their mouth angling it toward any specific hemisphere and pull the trigger. With a muzzle velocity of only 800 ft/sec it'd surely blow half your head off.
There you go, your ultimate thrill, you can be both the killer and victim, experiencing the total bliss, pleasure, of both things at the same time, after all it's only unfeeling atoms, subatomic particles, with electromagnetic cohesion. They can't feel any pain. The ultimate thrill, do it!
No? Yeah I thought so!
If you can't see that each life is compelled to only stay in their own lane of life, unless of course they are otherwise invited to join in, then you are in fact a coward. As it is only ever
cowardly to stand on the giving side of pain, and only ever
brave to stand on the receiving side of pain. And if you are incapable of coming to that logical conclusion, by studying all of humankind's history, then you must be psychotic. In which case you need to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist, before you either hurt someone or yourself.
And I don't care if you state that it's only a thought experiment, it's a kooky one at best, as there is no truth in it from any real human perspective, the universe's maybe, but only if it is indeed a cold non
feeling entity. Remember please that
pleasure is in fact a
feeling, not cold unfeeling atoms or subatomic particles. Or maybe they do feel, I mean how could we possibly know either way, as it's impossible for us to become one so as to truly know for sure, we only have conjecture based upon relative knowledge.
I am, from your own personal definition, someone who is psychotic. However, I am actually not psychotic and am actually just stating my beliefs which I believe are scientific facts. Also, I do not fear pain and suffering in my life like a coward. I just simply have the belief that pleasure is the only good thing in life and that pain and suffering are all bad regardless of what benefits they achieve (which would all be benefits that are neutral anyway since they are things aside from pleasure and suffering). They might achieve benefits of greater pleasure in life, but it would still only be the pleasure itself that is good and nothing else.
But here is one last convincing argument I have made that supports my views:
Good and bad can only be defined in terms of evolution. Pleasure is what encourages our survival and this is the only thing that makes pleasure good. Bad feelings such as fear may also encourage our survival in the sense of escaping from danger, but it's still bad because it is evolution's "warning." So "warning" (things such as pain and despair) in terms of evolution is the only thing that is bad while "encouraged survival" in the sense of us being encouraged in benefiting our species is the only thing that is good. Knowledge and thoughts alone may be used to make us do great things in life, help others, and benefit our survival, but these knowledge and thoughts are not the same as our "encouraged survival" (which is our pleasure). Thoughts and knowledge do not "encourage" us. They only merely make us do things in the sense of being neutral and our lives being neutral from our perspectives without our pleasure. Again, all things separate from our pleasure (such as the survival and benefiting of others) does not matter from our perspectives and is not good at all. Only our pleasure is good.
As for things such as rats pleasuring themselves to death through electrocutions, it's not the survival and benefiting of us that is good or bad (if they are things aside from our own pleasure and suffering). It's only our encouragement to benefit our survival (pleasure) that is the only thing defined as good in terms of evolution (even if it is used in not benefiting our survival and even harming ourselves and others). Again, knowledge and thoughts alone do not "encourage" us. And the idea of obtaining more pain from experiencing pleasure is just a thought that is neutral. So the idea of the rats not surviving is neither good or bad nor the idea of them experiencing suffering and pleasure is anything good or bad either. Only the suffering itself that the rats were experiencing was bad and it is only the pleasure itself that the rats experienced that was good.
As for from whose point of view would it be considered that their pleasure was actually good and that their suffering was bad? It would only be from their own perspectives. You might then be saying that this doesn't make it objective, but this is false. Feelings of pleasure are objectively good in of themselves for everyone while feelings of pain and despair are objectively bad for everyone regardless of our own personal thoughts (our own created meanings) regarding these feelings being good or bad for us because our thoughts are completely independent of them actually feeling objectively good and bad in of themselves. Or you could look at it from the perspective of science itself. For example, the scientific fact that the Earth revolves around the sun is not something subjective. We can have different created meanings regarding that such as that this is good or bad, but that still doesn't change the scientific fact that the Earth revolves around the sun. So only our thoughts are subjective while the feelings themselves are objective.
Now if you think there is a difference between something being objectively good and bad (our pleasure and suffering) in terms of the perspective of science as opposed to them being good and bad from our perspectives, there is not. Both say that the feelings of pleasure and suffering are the objectively good and bad things only from our own perspectives (which would be our own pleasure and suffering) while the pleasure and suffering of others from our own perspectives is still neither good or bad (neutral). If you are going to say something such as that this still makes our own feelings subjectively good or bad, I will then ask you what would be the difference between saying that it's a scientific fact that our minds are what they are and how they work despite the fact that they are subjective organs with different wiring and neuronal activities? Same thing with our feelings of pleasure and suffering since they are what they are (which would be good and bad) despite the fact that our thoughts and the activity in our brains are subjective. So this would be objective in the sense that our brains are what they are and is how they work in terms of science and it would also be subjective in the sense that the activity and wiring of our brains is different for each individual. Same thing applies for pleasure and suffering being the only good and bad things in life. It's subjective only in the sense that the activity of the neurons and other particles that elicit states of pleasure and suffering are different for everyone (yielding different levels and forms of "good" and "bad"). But it is objective in the sense that pleasure and suffering are the only good and bad things. So pleasure and suffering being the only good and bad things in life is both objective in one scientific sense and is also subjective in another scientific sense at the same time.
Also, some people obtain pleasure from witnessing the pain of others such as watching shows like "America's Funniest Videos" and then claim that there is no way for their pain to not be neutral since these people obviously find it pleasurable. Therefore, they claim that their pain is enjoyable (funny). First off, as for enjoying the pain of others (such as what you stated through watching "america's funniest videos"), it's only your pleasure itself that is enjoyed (since it is enjoyment). What goes on in the brain is that neutral (neither good or bad) stimuli (such as you observing the pain of others on that show) is perceived as something not neutral (something as good) which then sends a message to the brain that allows you to experience pleasure. Just because something is perceived as good does not make it good from your own perspective or from anyone else's for that matter. Again, only your pleasure itself is good since our thoughts and other things themselves are not our pleasure itself (they are not good). And, of course, the pain that those other people on the show are experiencing is bad from their own perspectives regardless of how you or even them perceive it through thoughts alone.
Now you may notice that I am using a lot of words such as "if" and "were" which are not scientific nor are they scientific facts. However, we can say the words "if" and "were" and it can still be a scientific fact. For example, the phrase "If someone were to have depression," we can ignore the words "if" and "were" since the depression itself is a scientific fact that happens to people (which would be all the combined scientific phenomenon that occurs during depression such as a loss of pleasure activity and other things and we would then add up all those things and call that 'depression'). The only non-fact that these words refer to in that quoted statement is the imagined situation of actually having the depression. Same thing with my argument. The things I'm saying in that argument are the scientific facts while all the words such as "if" and "were" only refer to the imagined version of that situation.
Also, if the definition of the word "good" means "that which is desired," then pleasure is the only thing that can achieve this because our thoughts and such alone are not "desires" (despite the fact that they may be thoughts of desiring something in life). They are just used for problem-solving and benefiting our survival. They are not desires. Pleasure is desire since it urges (encourages) us to benefit our survival in life although it may actually be detrimental at times. But if somehow pain and despair are desires, then they would still be bad because they are the "warning" version of desires. "Warning" being what is bad in terms of evolution while the opposite of "warning" would be what is good in terms of evolution (which would be pleasure). Thoughts would obviously be neither good or bad in terms of evolution since, again, they are not desires since they are not the urges that encourage us to survive either in "warning" version or in the "good" version.
Now if you are going to say something such as that "I can think of so many exceptions that it would be difficult to list them all. But the one that comes to mid the most would be giving birth. Very painful i have been told. And according to you then, giving birth is detrimental to the survival of the species," what I would have to say about that would be that the pain in of itself is a warning (something that is "bad"). It only encourages our survival in the sense that something is wrong (bad) in our lives. So the pain of the mother giving birth is a warning that a certain situation is bad (such as the tearing of the muscle tissue as the baby is in the process of being born). Therefore, since the opposite of that which would be having gotten out of that situation and now being in a happy situation in life free of suffering and despair, this would mean that our lives are good. So the baby now being born and the mother being happy with no pain and despair at the moment is the good situation. So even obtaining pleasure from harming others would be objectively good (although this situation would be good even though it is not benefiting his/her and others survival). But as I said before, the actual situations themselves are neutral while it's only your own pleasure and suffering that is objectively good and bad. But if you are going to say something such as that pleasure does not encourage our survival and that it is just simply a by-product of evolution (hence the reason why obtaining pleasure can be detrimental to yourself and others), this would be false. Pleasure is something that encourages our survival, but can be misused in terms of benefiting our survival.
Now I know that many people here would say that even our own feelings are arbitrary. But I ask you. If you were to go through the worst experience of pain and/or despair that a human being could ever possibly experience while having no thoughts and knowledge (no attributed values to your experience of pain and/or despair), are you saying that these things would not feel bad at all to you and that they would just feel like nothing more than "sensations" (such as touch, smell, etc.)? Same question applies for having the best experience of pleasure that a human being could ever possibly experience. Now if you are going to say something such as that these feelings feel differently for different people (such as that pain and despair can actually feel good), so what you are saying is that depression (hopelessness) can actually feel good to someone (despite the fact that it is the shutting down of the pleasure activity in the brain)? Isn't it only pleasure that allows us to feel good and, therefore, people who claim that pain feels good to them would actually be lying and that it is only the pleasure itself obtained from the pain that feels good? Also, hopelessness can never feel good and always feels bad. If you claim that it somehow does feel good, then that would mean that you would be having moments of pleasure separate from your experience of hopelessness since you cannot experience both hopelessness and pleasure at the same time. Meaning, that since hopelessness is the shutting down of our pleasure activity and is not a good experience in of itself, that pleasure is the only thing that feels good. But the fact that you can experience physical pain and pleasure at the same time means that the physical pain and the pleasure are two different experiences going on at once and that only the pleasure in of itself is good while only the pain in of itself is bad.
