Philosophy Now Forum

Real freedom doesn’t mean the right to do anything whatsoever, does it? Does it mean being given access to everything that is necessary for a flourishing life – and, it follows, being protected from many of the things that ruin life. This issue could encompass internet porography.

For some, internet pornography has replaced real life experiences. Men are finding it increasingly difficult to establish real relationships with women as they are losing their confidence and the ability to relate face to face with women and women have to compete with unrealistic images of what is expected from a woman. There was the case of a newly married man who had an online "affair" with his avatar GF on Second Life.

http://secondlife.com/whatis/?lang=en-US .

Images of the man and the woman having sex were discovered by his "real" wife. This man's marriage collapsed because of this unreal yet real sexual encounter.

The question is whether there are situations of having too much freedom, to the extent that it destroys things we really care about.

You know one of the things which buggers me about Ethics, is that so many people think Ethics is all about "restraint", about NOT doing things, when, a lot of times, it's really about DOING things. For instance, seek out the idiot and make him understand how stupid his mistakes are.

As god has shown us, we need total freedom so that when we do something wrong of our own free will, we can be blamed for it and in turn, punished forever .

But in all seriousness, limiting freedoms is not a good way to go, unless it is going to save lives. Our life is already rather limited already with expectations of society placed on us, we don't need to be told how to live. People should be able to think about the consequences of their actions and how it will effect people around them. If they still act poorly, they must not think very highly of those people.

Viewing hard core pornography can play havoc with our ethics. I am not advocating people should give up their freedom of choice to bow down to a stern authority, but maintain a limit for the sake of our well being. In moments of clarity, we should recognise that a liberty not subject to any restriction can trap us and with internet pornography we should limit what people consume.

Literally thousands of pornographic providers are exploiting the male gender. What is on offer on the net at a click of the button, far out strips Playboy or the Marquis de Sade. People are influenced by what they read and see and things dont go over heads. Humans are passionate and tossed about by hormones and desires and the wrong pictures may send them down the wrong track.

The side effects of porn are revealed when men find normal sexual stimuli insufficient and women have to perform like their pornographic counterparts. It has gone way beyond Playboy and the effect it will have on children is worth contemplating.

Interesting thread, thanks. Perhaps it will help to expand the discussion a bit?

Net porn is a colorful example of a larger unfolding story. Technology is increasingly empowering us to have virtual experiences that aren't available to us in real life. Because these experiences can be more compelling than what our real life can offer, many of us are moving steadily from real to virtual lives.

This forum is one readily available example. Many would observe us here, and state that we are addicted to an anonymous abstract social life and should kick the habit and make more friends in the real world. Philosophy porn is evil!, they would claim.

Violence porn is of course rampant on TV and in video games. For some illogical reason, this is considered less concerning than sex porn.

Emotional porn is another popular flavor, on TV especially. Observe CNN covering tragic dramas around the clock, and the endless number of love stories designed to tug on our heart strings.

What all these virtual experiences have in common is that they are helping us explore a profound philosophical question.

What is it that we really want?

This question rarely comes up in the real world due to all the limitations and restrictions etc. The question comes front and center in an environment that can remove those limits and restrictions.

As example, if we think sex porn is a threat now, imagine what will happen when the imagery leaps off of relatively small two dimensional screens in to a surround 3D space. Before long we'll be looking back on today's net porn and laughing about how incredibly primitive it was.

Girls, how about a virtual boyfriend who is never a jerk, who never smells, who never watches football, NASCAR and wrestling, and who always puts your needs first in each and every situation. Good luck finding that in the real world. What if the virtual world could provide such a guy in a manner that was suitably convincing?

We're headed for virtual experiences that are increasingly more realistic, both visually and interactively. We're headed for a future where the virtual world increasingly out competes the real world in giving us what we really want. Sooner or later the virtual world will win this psychological race, and we'll all be sucked deeper in to it than we can currently imagine.

But....

By the time that happens, it won't be seen as a big deal, just as spending hours a day watching TV isn't now.

What does our brain want?

Does it want our lover? Or, does it want the way our lover makes us feel?

Is the lover an end in itself? Or is the lover a means to an end?

If the lover is a means to an end, what happens when somebody else, or something else, can meet our needs better?

Ok, so we got divorced and tried another person. Some improvement in meeting our needs, but new unexpected problems too. Not quite the perfect utopia we were hoping for. That's the real world for ya....

What if all the problems could be engineered out of the experience?

How will imperfect real human beings compete with perfect virtual beings?

Felasco;

As usual, it is a thought-provoking pleasure to read what you write.

I would add to your words another perspective. While we are working to understand and tame this virtual world, what is happening to our skills in the real world?

Every family that I know spends between $100 and $300 every month on some form(s) of communications--phones, cable television, internet, games. Then the family members isolate themselves with their preferred form. It almost looks as though we are spending a fortune on communication so that we do not have to communicate.

Are we losing our social skills, our interpersonal skills? I suspect that social skills are practice skills--like learning to walk or write--in that we must use them to become good at them, and I don't believe that watching or memorizing them will actually give us use of these skills.

It should also be noted that there are way too many single parent households. When there is only one parent, the household is dictatorial, in that there is no opposing authority or view. In a normal household with two parents, there is always another view that is often opposing. So the parties must manipulate, charm, coerce, seduce, intimidate, negotiate, or in some way come to agreement or compromise. I think that growing up with this also helps children to learn social skills--and compromise.

So between these two different problems, I am not as worried about virtual reality as I am about reality, and enabling people's ability to function within reality.

Gee

reasonvemotion wrote:The side effects of porn are revealed when men find normal sexual stimuli insufficient and women have to perform like their pornographic counterparts. It has gone way beyond Playboy and the effect it will have on children is worth contemplating.

Yes, the effect it had on me as a child was "awesome!". Anyways, I stand where I was, you are being too restrictive, you mention freedom but don't really talk about it as such. You are just like "of what stupid people somebody should hold their hand in front of their eyes so that the people don't blind themselves!".

No, the only way is to point out, make discussion, make people realize, and not just cage their mind least it escapes. Your proposition is preposterous and weak-minded, exactly what I was saying: you think ethics is about NOT doing something, whereas most of the time it is about DOING something. So go out there and point out to them that their expectations are ridiculous.

Anyways, some people think porn is better than the real thing. I don't know what I think. I've had sex once (three in one night with same person) and I didn't come, it was boring, she was just lying and I was doing all the stuff (which I knew pretty well how to do, and she seemed to enjoy it pretty well). Then I got a blow-job out on the French country-side by a prostitute who wanted to give a free special to the poor homeless guy, and the orgasm was so powerful it was not even good, she might as well had killed me with an electric shock, although I did get a sudden flush of butterfly-like emotions afterwards which I had to surpress.

I think that the fact that the girl enjoyed what I did so much is because I had pretty much studied how to make it a powerfully good experience and I, she being much hotter than I was, gave her 3 good orgasms by the look of it, while she gave me none with her boring attitude. So I think pornography helps a lot to understand how to make the human being get worked up. She was not a porn-addict as I understood it or watched it at all, so what I was doing was not "ritual" to pornography, it was common human stuff, just knowing how to make the experience flow good, and it helped a lot. She on the other hand didn't know how to work the experience of a guy too well, and she got bottom-grade for it. Of course, if I was all that "innocent" guy who had never looked at women's genitalia in a funny way then I might settle for a lot less, but the more I imagine that the more stupid it looks like in my head, and I don't think it would benefit anybody just lowering the entrance-fee. I think it would mean worse business, that's what I think.

Anyway, if you are talking about sadomasochism then that stuff is the shit! It would be awful not to get to watch that stuff. I love it when women tie each other up and dominate and whip each other, it really gets your system working. No way I wouldn't have that sort of thing out on the internet!

you think ethics is about NOT doing something, whereas most of the time it is about DOING something

I am talking about OVER DOING. Excess.

Anyways, some people think porn is better than the real thing

Isn't that what I am saying?


The standard view is that people should be left to look at porn as much as they like, just as they should be left to buy guns, it’s a free country, after all.

The philosopher St Augustine advocates real freedom doesn’t mean the right to do anything whatsoever. It means being given access to everything that is necessary for a thriving existence and, it follows, being protected from many of the things that ruin life. A brain originally designed to cope with nothing more tempting than Adam and Eve is lost with what’s now on offer on the net at the click of a button. Part of the problem is that it’s extremely tempting to some people, as alcohol and crack cocaine are.

Futuristic scenarios. It is quite feasible that robots in human society in the future may act as human sexual partners. Put a sexually delicious looking female robot or a handsome robot guy in front of you and you will not be tempted?

How far will this dark side of humanity go.

RE, why is it bad to have robot female sex partners? I've dreamed of that a lot of times, one of my favourite sexual fantasies actually ^^ sex robots would do anything!!! Personally, I would be in paradise with a really good female sex robot, or two, or three and I could get all kinds of flavours in size and colour also

VoT wrote:

RE, why is it bad to have robot female sex partners? I've dreamed of that a lot of times, one of my favourite sexual fantasies actually ^^ sex robots would do anything!!! Personally, I would be in paradise with a really good female sex robot, or two, or three and I could get all kinds of flavours in size and colour also

RE wrote:

For some, internet pornography has replaced real life experiences. Men are finding it increasingly difficult to establish real relationships with women as they are losing their confidence and the ability to relate face to face ............

VoT you prove my point.

it's just the right direction RE, increasing the effectiveness, anyways, when everybody has a robot there would be even more ways in which they could learn to treat each other!

If robots became better than humans, why would we humans use each other? Use inferior quality just for the sake of it? If you're talking about affection between humans we could still maintain strong friendships, we don't have to be sexual-lovers everyone for it to work.

For instance, with each our robot, we might sit at a bar and talk while our robots gives us head. Isn't that cool you think? Your own personal slave just for sex, and then you can have some other person as a strong friend.

Hi Gee,

As usual, it is a thought-provoking pleasure to read what you write.

Thank you. It's fun to chat with other anonymous digital life forms.

While we are working to understand and tame this virtual world, what is happening to our skills in the real world?

I would agree they are declining. This is not theory for me, but 17 years of personal experience as someone who basically moved to the web much as one might move to some other far off foreign land. As example...

On the web I can engage in conversations on the obscure topics that interest me, exactly when I'm in the mood to have such conversations. I can leave the conversation at the moment I begin to lose interest. The real world simply can't match this feature. But the price tag has been that I now have less patience with real world conversations.

Are we losing our social skills, our interpersonal skills? I suspect that social skills are practice skills--like learning to walk or write--in that we must use them to become good at them, and I don't believe that watching or memorizing them will actually give us use of these skills.

Yes, agree completely. As example, after years of endless typing, my hand writing skills have gone to complete shit. Takes me about 3 minutes just to write my own name. Use it or lose it seems a useful rule. It seems this would also apply to real world social skills.

Are we losing our communication skills? Perhaps this is too simplistic a question. Because I'm a writer by nature, I can now express thoughts that I've rarely been able to share in the very different environment of real world conversations. I'm better at the communication I have a knack for, and worse at the communication I was never that talented at.

We might observe here that a great deal of real world communication is not really communication at all, but rather the repeating of fairly rigid social scripts.

As example, you see me in the grocery store, and come over to say hello.

YOU: Hi there Felasco, how ya doing?
ME: I like ducks!
YOU: Huh?
ME: Ducks don't eat pizza!
YOU: Um, I gotta be going now...

I've just blown the script. I was supposed to say, "Fine, and how about you etc." Try it yourself. Edit the expected scripts in even the most modest way, and folks will tend to become uncomfortable. These real world social scripts are a way we can pretend we are communicating.

I think that growing up with this also helps children to learn social skills--and compromise.

Except that nobody really wants to compromise, we want to get what we want. The real world demands compromise, while the virtual world gives us what we want. Guess which of these systems is going to win?

So between these two different problems, I am not as worried about virtual reality as I am about reality, and enabling people's ability to function within reality.

Yes, and the worse we get at managing the social real world, the more we'll be drawn in the virtual world.

I agree there is much to worry about, but this movement from the real world to the virtual world is bigger than any of us. It's going to happen whatever we might think of it.

With all the very real problems presented by an emerging virtual world, it offers us the promise of having exactly whatever it is we really want, and that's a power that just won't be denied. Imho, this topic is a fascinating arena for philosophers.

The coming future will be like the movement from the 19th century to the 21st century. Life is now both better and worse than it once was. Most of us don't even understand what's been lost, and so we don't miss it. I'm guessing the future will be like that too.

Getting back to porn, suppose you could date anyone on the planet Earth. Anyone you find appealing. A couple of clicks, and you're there, sitting on their couch, sipping wine, and enjoying the sweet taste of anticipating what's to come.

No compromises, no complications, unless you want them. If you like dramas and emotional roller coasters, you can have that too. It's up to you. Turn features on and off as you wish.

How are any of us going to compete with that?

It's so revolutionary, I doubt any of us can really grasp the implications.

reasonvemotion....

I doubt there's much chance anybody is going to stop porn, but we might be able to understand it.

If you're a woman, than it's entirely possible that having anonymous virtual sex is not something you would interest you. Women are a higher life form than men, so dog like behaviors may just not be your thing.

If true, then the path to understanding porn would require you to change the subject to something that you do want, but don't have ready access to in the real world.

I wouldn't presume to know what that might be, so let's say you really enjoy XYZ. Let's say the real world offers you little to no XYZ, but the virtual world offers you endless unlimited access to XYZ, all you want, when you want it, the way you want it. Let's say the simulation is accurate enough to be sufficiently convincing to you.

If you wish to defeat porn, you'll have to understand how human beings can be persuaded to give up things they really want and can have in the virtual world, in order to return to a real world environment where they don't get what they want.

You mentioned that you were objecting to excess. That seems wise. What you perhaps don't realize is that anything can be dangerous in excess. Should we protect you from excessive enjoyment of XYZ? Should we decide what level of enjoyment of XYZ is excessive?

I appreciate your reference to St. Augustine, but you are kind of doing a typical Catholic thing here, pointing a moralizing finger at somebody else's excesses, instead of exploring your own. Fair warning, I was raised Catholic, so I know this game pretty well.

reasonvemotion....

I doubt there's much chance anybody is going to stop porn, but we might be able to understand it.

If you're a woman, than it's entirely possible that having anonymous virtual sex is not something you would interest you. Women are a higher life form than men, so dog like behaviors may just not be your thing.

I see from that remark you have little or no respect for the male sex and to put the "natural" coupling of a man and a woman in the category of dog like behavior seems to encapsulate this.

Women are a higher life form than men? Is that an "if you say so" or do you have proof of that statement.

If true, then the path to understanding porn would require you to change the subject to something that you do want, but don't have ready access to in the real world.

Untrue.

I wouldn't presume to know what that might be, so let's say you really enjoy XYZ. Let's say the real world offers you little to no XYZ, but the virtual world offers you endless unlimited access to XYZ, all you want, when you want it, the way you want it. Let's say the simulation is accurate enough to be sufficiently convincing to you.

Indeed, yet you presume women would not indulge in virtual sex. Plenty of women do.

If you wish to defeat porn, you'll have to understand how human beings can be persuaded to give up things they really want and can have in the virtual world, in order to return to a real world environment where they don't get what they want.

I don't wish to 'defeat' porn, I don't believe I have stated that.

You mentioned that you were objecting to excess. That seems wise. What you perhaps don't realize is that anything can be dangerous in excess. Should we protect you from excessive enjoyment of XYZ? Should we decide what level of enjoyment of XYZ is excessive?

I do realise, as I said in a previous post, it can be likened to crack cocaine or alcohol addiction.

I appreciate your reference to St. Augustine, but you are kind of doing a typical Catholic thing here, pointing a moralizing finger at somebody else's excesses, instead of exploring your own. Fair warning, I was raised Catholic, so I know this game pretty well.

I have no interest in Catholicism and yes, I do agree with you, it is a game.

Religions can be accused of being "exaggeratedly proper" regarding sex, but there is a method in their "madness". They may warn us against sex, but it is out of an active knowledge of the power of desire. Religions would not think sex was bad, if they didnt appreciate how beautiful it is and that it has the ability to get in the way of some important things, like religion and our lives. Even if we dont believe in a God, a degree of suppression is seemingly needed for our species to adequately function as a half way ordered society. We have to work, commit to relationships, care for our children, hence we cannot afford to allow our sexual urges to express themselves without some restraint. Online or offline. If left unchecked it could have some undesirable repercussions.