Philosophy Now Forum

First off, I am a compassionate and caring person and I would have compassion and such towards depressed people despite knowing that they are, metaphorically speaking in a sense, inferior biological robots. I feel that not only are others robots, but I am also a robot in a sense as well and I wish to discuss this with people who are supportive and such who might be able to try and convince me otherwise to at least try and make me feel less angry/depressed about myself and such. I also wish to tell the critical truth here which is that we who suffer from depression and anhedonia are inferior and that our lives are worthless. Why do I wish to tell you this? It would be because people need to realize that there is no good value whatsoever in suffering and despair and that it is critical that we find more effective treatments and cures. Suffering and despair only makes you a lesser person regardless of what great things you have achieved in life through your suffering and despair. So it is critical that people are aware of everything I'm saying here so that we no longer become delusional in thinking our lives are somehow worth living without pleasure and that we are somehow better people through our suffering and despair. Instead, we should not accept this as a way of life and instead do something about it and try to find better treatments and cures. Without our full ability to experience pleasure in life, then this one and only life we will ever have is being wasted away and most people are completely unaware of this and have the delusion that their lives are somehow worth living anyway without their pleasure. Unless you do something to try and fully regain the most important thing about you in life (which is your pleasure), you all will forever be inferior human beings with worthless lives! Also, Aristotle was someone who said that there is value and such in suffering and despair. But based on my arguments, I think I might have proven him wrong in my writing here. I realize that there is no such thing has living a perfectly happy life with no suffering or despair, but what I mean here in terms of living a nice happy struggle-free life is those happy people who don't have serious life-threatening problems in their lives.

This life is unfair and does not give us what we want. It takes away from those people who have problems in life and gives to those who have nice happy lives. We who never wanted to have depression have depression and are forced to live with it due to this life being unfair. Yet we think that this life will give us who are depressed and/or have anhedonia (emotional numbness) at least some fair advantage through inspiring mesages from others such as that we are strong, courageous, and better people for having suffered from depression and for moving forward in life despite of it. But that, to me, is something not true at all. The truth is that we want something fair given to us through inspiring messages such as these, but this life is unfair and, for that very reason, messages such as these are not true at all and is something this unfair life won't give to us. Inspiring messages such as these are delusional. We as human beings are always looking for positive things in life and even invent inspiring messages and such to give us false hopes and a false sense of moving forward in life. For example, people have invented religion and say that there is a God and a heaven. But I am an atheist and know that this is not true and don't believe in such superstition.

So these inspiring messages and inspiring philosophies that say we are stronger and such for having problems in life, this is yet another one of those concocted beliefs I don't believe in. Now if you are going to say something such as that depression has inspired you to help more people suffering and in pushing and striving more in life to get more things done and such, the truth is that you can help others and push and strive and do great things in life just as good as (and even better) through living nice happy lives than those people who do through their life of suffering and despair. This can be done through living a nice happy life under the right circumstances. Therefore, our suffering and despair is truly pointless and we are not better or stronger people for having gone through it and for moving forward in life despite of it. Although some forms of struggle do have a benefit such as becoming more physically fit through hard training in the military which would be the "no pain, no gain" mentality in having gained something that living a nice happy live couldn't achieve, there are forms of struggle in this life that are truly pointless. Depression as well as anhedonia is one of these pointless struggles and is nothing but pointless misery (especially for those who can't gain any betterment from their suffering and are doomed to an entire life of suffering).

Depression and anhedonia do not offer any greater benefit than living a nice happy life. Therefore, we are all instead inferior as opposed to who we would be through living nice happy lives and opposed to those people who live nice happy lives. So happy people with nice lives are truly the better and stronger people with the better lives compared to us. Now some scientific studies show that people who went through trauma and depression become more compassionate, understanding, caring, and become better leaders and such that living a nice happy life could never achieve. Although this might hold true for some people, this does not hold true for everyone and is not a proven scientific fact. There are many other scientific studies indicating the opposite and I have every reason to instead believe these scientific studies. I have every reason to instead believe that you can be the better compassionate/understanding person and better in other ways as well under the right circumstances through living a nice happy life. For example, anyone can be a better compassionate/understanding person by changing his/her attitude as well as through other things in life. Another example would be that you can be the more intelligent person and help others suffering through your intelligence by reading and studying up on things. In other words, you do not have to suffer in order to be a better/smarter/more creative person.

Now here's another thing I would like to say which is that who you are as a person is all things about you (your thoughts, knowledge, personality, attitude, your pleasure and other emotions, etc.). Therefore, to lose your ability to experience pleasure or other emotions due to depression or anhedonia (emotional numbness) would make you a lesser person. Also, it's the people who don't accept a lifelong depression or anhedonia that are at least the better people because they are more compassionate in telling others to try and live your life all you can to recover your ability to experience pleasure.

People who don't have acceptance of their depression and/or anhedonia realize that there are people who can never accept living a life of depression and/or anhedonia as well and are on the brink of either suicide or homicide because of this. For the sake of these very types of people, this person without acceptance of depression and/or anhedonia might not tell anyone to accept a lifelong depression and/or anhednoia that might never get better. Instead, he/she might encourage these people to keep trying all they can to recover their ability to experience pleasure. So this is the reason why people without acceptance of depresion and/or anhedonia are better compassionate people as opposed to those people who live by philosophies and such that encourage acceptance of living an entire life of suffering and despair. People with acceptance of living an entire life of depression and/or anhedonia that might never get better or fully recover are the lesser people and are less compassionate because they instead tell others to accept a lifelong depression and/or anhedonia and even tell this to the faces of those who are on the brink of suicide or homicide. People without acceptance of depression and/or anhedonia are also the better people because they never give up on trying to recover their pleasure and instead inspire others to not give up on this either. But people with acceptance of depression and/or anhedonia are discouraging and will drive people to suicide or homicide.

Who you are as a person is nothing compared to your feelings of love and pleasure because they are the greatest gifts to you in life and are the greatest aspects of you as a human being. They make you better than everyone else who either doesn't have as much love or pleasure as you do or who have little to no love or pleasure due to depression or anhedonia (emotional numbness) which is a symptom of depression. Love and pleasure is superior to emotionless robots and people who don't have love and/or pleasure due to either depression or anhedonia (emotional numbness) are the equivalent to emotionless robots. You would still be nothing more than the equivalent to an inferior biological robot regardless of how much others value you, what great things you do in life, and how much you help others if you lived a life without pleasure. Even if who you are as a person does have human value and is not something "robotic," you would still be an utterly inferior human being because pleasure is the greatest thing about you in life and to lose it would make you inferior.

So even if you were a psychopath like Hitler who slaughtered many innocent people, as long as you have pleasure, that would make you the better person. You would even be far better than a depressed and emotionally numb innocent person who instead helped many people around the world. If I had the choice to either become someone like Hitler with all the pleasure in the world or be the most caring innocent person with no feelings of pleasure whatsoever, I would choose to become someone like Hitler. The reason for my choice is that who I am as a person does not matter and is nothing compared to my pleasure. My happiness is the only thing that matters in terms of me as a person. But if you are thinking that I would want to kill innocent people for the sake of me having pleasure, this would be wrong. If I was a psychopath like Hitler, I would have the choice as to whether I kill or not. So it's not like I would have no choice and kill these people anyway. So it all really comes down to just who I am as a person and I would gladly sacrifice that to have full pleasure in life. Even if I were to get to the point where I am in the process of about to kill someone, someone like a police officer would intervene and send me to prison and I would gladly take the risk of going to prison as well for the sake of having full pleasure in life.

Who you are as a person (in this case, being a psychopath like Hitler) is neither inferior nor superior to someone who helps and cares for other people because who you are as a person is nothing more than biological robotic functions and has no value whatsoever (whether positive or negative) compared to pleasure. It's only your amount of pleasure that makes you the better person. So this is the reason why people with nice happy lives are the better people. As for feelings of pleasure that are obtained from eating tasty foods (which I wouldn't even call pleasure at all--just simply a tasty sensation), these types of pleasure have no value and don't make you a better person. It's the other types of pleasure such as love, joy, motivation, empowerment, etc. (the "powerful" and "human-defining" feelings of pleasure), these are what make you the better person.

All of those "greater" feelings of pleasure I just mentioned, they all have equal value. Not having one of them would make you a lesser person. But despite the fact that Hitler has no love, he would still be better than an emotionally numb person who can't feel any form of pleasure whatsoever, but helped many people and gave them pleasure. Also, people with mania are even more superior than people who have a normal full amount of pleasure in life because these people experience pleasure to a degree that is beyond what a normal human being would experience. So a person with manic depression would be a superior human being in their manic state and would be an inferior biological robot in their depressed state. As I will explain later in my writing, having full pleasure makes you the better person and a better composer since you can tap into these feelings in coming up with even greater compositions that have more emotion to them and such. So people with mania are likely to be even greater composers and can achieve great things in life and help others better than they could if they have had suffering and despair in their lives. So if Beethoven had mania, he would likely be able to channel his feelings of mania in creating even greater compositions that have much more powerful emotion to them and such.
I believe in hedonism and hedonism states that pleasure is the only greatest thing in life. Everything else in life is nothing compared to pleasure. So this is the reason why pleasure is the only greatest thing about you as a person and to lose that would basically make you nothing as a person. My personal experience of pleasure also says to me that it is the greatest thing in life and that nothing else in life or about you as a person ever compares (even if you were a person who values the pleasure of others and lived solely to bring others pleasure). The fact is, you have lost your own pleasure if you had depression or anhedonia and you would still be nothing more than an inferior biological robot even if you instead lived solely to bring others pleasure. Yes, the pleasure of others matters just as greatly as your own. But you would still be nothing as a person without your own pleasure.

There are people who live their entire lives with depression and/or anhedonia and can never get better or fully recover (they can never overcome their suffering). Based on my reasonings in my opening post, these would be the most inferior people of all. Even I am having depression and severe chronic anhedonia and I would be inferior and I would be the most inferior person if I could never get better or fully recover. Also, there are innocent people with nice happy lives with little to no struggles who help others suffering and achieve great things in their lives just as good as (and even better) than those people who do through their suffering and despair. Therefore, suffering and despair is truly pointless and all that matters is being happy in life and giving others pleasure through your own pleasure and through your nice happy life free of suffering.

Some people obtain pleasure from suffering (whether it be valuing suffering or even recieving relief from suffering). But, once again, you can achieve much more pleasure and greater feelings of pleasure having lived a nice happy life of no suffering. Now if pleasure wasn't all that important in life, then why do so many people who have anhedonia and depression feel suicidal and that their lives are basically worthless without feelings of pleasure?

Some would say that we are heroes for our depression and anhedonia by saying something such as that "A hero is an ordinary person who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." But this "heroic" meaning or any other positive meaning for that matter would be the weaker and lesser meaning compared to how much stronger and better we would be through living nice happy lives based on my arguments in my post. It would be irrational to think that this "heroic" meaning is somehow better. It would be irrational in terms of science and would be irrational in terms of philosophy. It would also be irrational based on everything I'm saying in my writing.

I believe in evolution and that our sole purpose is to survive. In other words, the phrase "survival of the fittest" is our motto in life and is our only purpose in living. Those with anhedonia and depression as well as other major problems are the most unfit for survival (the weakest) while those with nice happy lives are the most fit for survival (the strongest) and that is what makes these happy people superior. We are nothing special or strong for having suffered and for moving forward in life despite our suffering because we would still be unfit for survival (weak). Strong (in terms of science) is when you gain something. For example, if you are strong from working out, that would mean you have gained muscles. Weak would then be the opposite. So it's as simple as losing a part of you through depression or anhedonia (which would be your pleasure and/or other emotions) would make you weaker. But any other meaning we give to words such as "strong" or "weak" besides what they are in terms of science, those types of meanings would be irrational and false since there is nothing beyond science. Also, as I said before, any gains we obtain from suffering and despair are gains we can achieve just as good (and even better) through living nice happy lives and that is what makes us lesser and weak compared to who we would be through living nice happy lives and in comparison to those who do live nice happy lives.

However, pleasure is the only strength in life and all other aspects of you as a human being (your thoughts, knowledge, and attitude in moving forward in life), these are not strengths at all. They are nothing more than biological robotic functions that a highly intelligent and well-designed biological robot from the future that has no ability to love or experience pleasure would possess. So people with anhedonia and depression would still be nothing more than inferior biological robots even with the attitude of moving forward in life, in helping others, and in doing great things in their lives.

People struggling with depression or anhedonia might think they are the better people for gaining knowledge and learning how to treat and recover from it. But innocent and caring people with nice happy lives can even learn how to recover from depression and help others if they learn and study about it and help others through their knowledge. Again, knowing things does not make you a better person since knowledge is nothing but biological robotic functioning.

Now a true emotionally sensitive human being is someone who has both immense value towards his/her own feelings of pleasure as well as the pleasure of others. To instead have no value towards pleasure in general at all (both yours and others) and instead find value in other things in life (or even value towards life itself for that matter), you would truly be the lesser person who has no part in the title of an "emotionally sensitive human being" whatsoever. You would not only demean yourself for abandoning the greatest aspect of you as a person (which is your pleasure), but you would also be demeaning of others by, for example, telling other people to abandon their value of pleasure in general and to find greater thing in life as well as to tell these people to tell others this same message. This would be truly offensive and demeaning of someone with depression or anhedonia who is on the brink of suicide who feels his/her life is basically no longer worth living without his/her pleasure. Also, "emotionally sensitive" means having high emotional sensitivity to things in life. For example, if someone is emotionally sensitive in terms of their love, then this person would easily feel love and would also experience it very strongly. But having an emotionally sensitive personality would mean that you have a personality that would enable you to easily experience emotions as well as experience these emotions strongly. So even though I have anhedonia and am unable to experience any emotions, I do have an emotionally sensitive personality.

But despite the fact that Hitler, I think, has only half the title of "emotionally sensitive" for having value towards his own feelings of pleasure in killing innocent people, he is still the better person for having pleasure in his life. So even if you didn't have this title at all, you would still be the better person for having pleasure because how much the title of "emotionally sensitive" defines your greatness as a human being is little compared to the level of greatness that is defined by pleasure. Except that, without your title of an "emotionally sensitive human being" whatsoever, it would only be your feelings of love and pleasure themselves that would be great. But who you are as a person would be completely inferior and, in my eyes, would be someone who has completely lost his/her humanity in terms of being an emotionally sensitive human being and I would no longer view you as a human being. You would be likely to be someone who would both offend me and others by telling us that feelings of love and pleasure are not that great or not great at all and that there are other things in life of greater value. For this very reason, you would instead be a cold and cruel emotionally insensitive machine for not having value towards these feelings and instead having value towards other things in life. It would be likely that you would have no compassion or anything towards these feelings that are lost in people with anhedonia and depression. You might think that you might be a great person and such for having value in other things besides the feelings of love and pleasure themselves such as being able to express oneself and expressing that you love someone (despite not having any feelings of love due to depression or anhedonia). But that is nothing compared to having these feelings themselves and being able to express these feelings that you have to others or in other ways. Simply expressing yourself without emotion is nothing more than biological "robotic" functioning that a highly intelligent and well-designed biological robot in the future can achieve. So you would instead be the utterly inferior being for not having any value towards these feelings themselves.

I will point out what I said before which is that expressing ourselves and our actions are nothing compared to these feelings themselves. Also, if I were to explain my situation of depression or anhedonia to a young innocent child who lives in ignorant bliss, this child would be likely to have full compassion towards me by saying that this will fully recover, that accepting a lifelong depression or anhedonia that never gets better or fully recovers would be a hopeless and worthless life that would warrant suicide as a means to put one out of his/her misery and for that very reason, I will be the hero and fully overcome my depression and anhedonia. However, someone who does not live in such innocent ignorant bliss and instead has value towards other things in life such as philosophies that encourage acceptance of living an entire life of suffering and despair, these would be the types of people who have less compassion/value towards my lost feelings of love and pleasure by telling me instead to accept a life of depression or anhedonia that might never get better or fully recover. Therefore, these types of people who have more value towards gaining knowledge and such are the lesser beings who no longer have the innocence and compassion of a young child. For this very reason, I will instead turn to people who have true full compassion towards me and not to those people who are "wise and intelligent inferior biological robots with little to no value and compassion towards the greatest aspects of me as a human being (which are my feelings of love and pleasure) which are the one and only precious things to me that make my life worth living." Also, think of how depressed and such you would feel if you were to lose the greatest thing in your life. To me, based on my own personal experience of love and pleasure, these things are the greatest things to me and I have now lost them. Now if you are going to say something to me such as that they are not the greatest things in life, then everything I'm saying in this story summary as well as the actual story itself are all arguments to try and convince you otherwise. Even if somehow everything I'm saying in my writing is false, then consider everything I'm saying here as explanations to how I feel about pleasure and having lost it. Nothing can change my attitude because I refuse to change due to the fact that these feelings are truly the greatest things to me in life and that I will never accept having lost them. That, and accepting my loss here would make me the lesser person for all of my reasons stated in my writing.

I would no longer consider you a human being even if you were someone who suffered from depression or anhedonia and decided to let go and accept a lifelong loss of pleasure and moved on in life. You would only be the truly better person in my eyes if you had the full title of "emotionally sensitive" who instead decided to not accept a lifelong loss of pleasure and told others to not accept theirs and decided to live your life trying to fully regain your lost pleasure through therapy, medication, and other things.

You might be sensitive towards other things in life if you didn't have the title "emotionally sensitive" at all, but pleasure is the only greatest thing (based on all my arguments made here) and to instead find value in other things in life makes you the lesser person. However, if I am somehow wrong about pleasure being the greatest thing in life (which I don't think I am), then any positive attitudes we use to get us through in life all have equal value. In other words, one is not superior or inferior to the other. So if you were someone suffering from anhedonia or depression and had the positive attitude in finding something greater in life than pleasure in general, the fact is, those things wouldn't have greater value than pleasure because your positive attitude is neither better nor worse than the positive attitude of someone who does find that pleasure is the only greatest thing that matters in life. Therefore, you did not find anything greater in your life through your suffering of depression or anhedonia (which would be the "finding of the true and greater value in life" mindset which would be false). You would have suffered for nothing just to have value towards something else in life which already has the exact same value as pleasure. Even if you did find more things in life of greater value and such through your suffering as opposed to a nice happy life that you might of lived before, the fact is, you can find just as much things (and even more) to be of greater value through a life of pure pleasure alone and living a life of no suffering because there are innocent and caring people with nice happy lives free of major struggles who achieve this.

There are people who create dark, gothic and tragic works of art through their suffering. But you can create these types of art through pure pleasure alone (the pleasure of dark, tragic, and gothic things) and through a life free of struggles. Someone who knows what it's like to suffer might look at such a work of art and say: "How tragic and what despair this piece has." But a person who does not know what it's like to suffer and simply just receives pleasure might look at such a work of art and say: "How awesome and hardcore!" But based on everything I said in my writing here, suffering is pointless in the first place. Therefore, knowing what it's like to suffer is also pointless and we should all just live awesome and hardcore lives of pure pleasure and no suffering. Even without knowing what suffering is in the first place and if there was no such thing as suffering, we can still create dark, gothic, and tragic works of art through pure innovation alone (as artists are creative and can create things that don't exist in the real world). We can create these works of art through pure pleasure alone and share them to other non-suffering people who will also receive pleasure from them. They can obtain pleasure just as good (and even better) from these works of art than people who do knowing what it's like to suffer and through witnessing such a work of art through their knowledge and experience of suffering.

There are people who are great figures (composers and such) in history through their suffering and despair. But these same people could of been just as great (and even better) through living nice happy lives of no suffering and despair under the right circumstances. My dream in life was to be a good composer through my pure pleasure alone with a life of little to no suffering and despair (no depression or anhedonia). The fact that I am an emotionally sensitive human being who has immense value towards feelings of love and pleasure, this is what makes me a great person and composer since I can tap deep into my feelings of love and pleasure in coming up with pieces of music that are far greater and more powerful than what the average lesser being who has no such value towards these feelings could only come up with which would be compositions that are likely to be nowhere near as emotionally great as my compositions. It's not only my emotionally sensitive personality that would make me the better composer, but also my feelings of love and pleasure themselves since these feelings (once tapped into through my emotionally sensitive personality), can create great compositions (combined with my used knowledge of music theory and such). These compositions would be far greater than if I was someone with no feelings of love and pleasure due to my depression and anhedonia.

So if the greatest composers had no depression and had their full emotions to tap into, they would be able to create even greater compositions. So this is why their despair made them lesser people and lesser composers. Depression is not an emotion at all to tap into or embrace. Inner nothingness is not a "power" or an aspect to embrace at all and does not make you a better person for having embraced and used it for great things in life and in helping others. It is a lack of power that only serves to make you a lesser person. Now if you are going to say something such as that embracing your inner nothingness makes you feel empowered and such and that this is what makes your inner nothingness great, that doesn't make it great. Your pleasure is what allowed you to feel empowered and such in the first place. Therefore, it is just pleasure that makes you great.

Depression and anhedonia are, therefore, the taking away of your feelings since depression and anhedonia are processes in the brain that turn off pleasure and such in the brain and makes you less mentally and physically functional as opposed to having these full feelings which would enhance your mental emotional composing capabilities and such. Feelings of sadness and anger are feelings to tap into since they are the activating of emotional parts of the brain (though they are utterly inferior emotions compared to feelings of love and pleasure since they are emotions that only serve to make you feel bad and that feelings of love and pleasure can be used to do just as much great things in life and in helping others to an even greater degree as opposed to feelings of sadness and anger). But depression (hopelessness) and anhedonia (emotional numbness) are the taking away of emotional activity in the brain.

So even other great historical figures besides composers could of done great things in their lives and helped others just as good (and even better) if they lived nice happy lives of no suffering and despair because that would make them much more mentally and physically functional in life and they could of used this high functioning to do even more amount of great things in life and in helping even more people. Again, I would have compassion and such towards these people despite knowing they are the lesser beings and I am not trying to offend them. I am a person who speaks the truth regardless of how offensive it is and I am, therefore, just telling the truth here like it is. Some people might scorn upon me and view me as a bad person for having these beliefs, but that's not so. Your beliefs don't determine whether you are a good or bad person. It is who you are as a person that determines this. Since I am compassionate and caring and would never be someone who would laugh in the faces of those who are lesser beings, that makes me a good person.

As for me, I will not express my suffering through my music because doing that would only make me feel worse and also because I would have become the lesser person in the world of composing for not being able to channel and express my feelings of pleasure that I wanted to do so badly and instead being an inferior biological robot who creates music through no emotions or through depression. Even if it is for the sake of helping others, I would still be nothing but an inferior biological robot anyway both as a person and as a composer. I am putting my dream of being a composer on hold for now since my only goal in becoming a composer was to channel and express my feelings of love and pleasure alone through composing since suffering and despair is pointless and inferior to me. Only when these feelings are fully recovered will I ever go back to being a composer because I would then have these feelings to channel and express. If I had any other disability in life besides a loss of pleasure due to depression or anhedonia, that's when I would never give up and continue composing since I would still have the greatest thing about me as a person and as a composer (which would be my feelings of love and pleasure).

Now the fact that I am an emotionally sensitive human being who can come up with great compositions through my emotionally sensitive personality combined with me living a nice happy life free of suffering and despair is the ultimate combination that would make me the great person and composer. I would of composed epic pieces of music as an expression of this ultimate combination. Again, what I mean by a life free of despair and suffering is just a nice happy life of little suffering and despair because I realize that there is no such perfect life in which we are completely free of suffering and despair. If I have composed epic masterpieces through these things, my message to the world through my music would be that my pleasure is what made me the great person and great composer and that living a nice happy life of little to no suffering and despair is what truly makes you the great person and a great artist/composer combined with being an emotionally sensitive human being. Suffering and despair is truly pointless and only serves to make you a lesser person since you can achieve great things in life through living nice happy lives just as good as (and even better) than people who do through their lives of suffering and despair.

I would say this message to the world as well as that despair (depression and anhedonia) makes you an inferior biological robot regardless of who you are as a person, how much you help others, and what great things you do in life. Because of this, all of the great figures in history who suffered despair were the lesser beings because they and others are delusional in thinking that their suffering and despair made them great. Unlike them, I am not delusional and realize that it would instead be my happiness and a life free of suffering and despair that would make me great and would be my own greatness in life.

Also, you might be thinking that the suffering and despair that the greatest people in history went through allowed them to push and strive more and that this is what made them great. But, once again, you can push yourself and strive just as good (and even better) through living a nice happy life of no suffering and despair under the right circumstances. We are not designed by evolution to push and strive through feelings of depression (hopelessness) or anhedonia (emotional numbness) with just thoughts and such alone without our pleasure. For this very reason, this is another reason why the greatest people in history could of been more great since pleasure (motivation and many others) is what encourages our survival of pushing and striving in life. Depression and anhedonia is something that only discourages our survival in life by shutting us down. I certainly know for a fact that me living a nice happy life would allow me to push and strive much more in life and become something far greater in life than if I was someone who suffered from depression and anhedonia who chose to even push myself and strive despite my depression and anhedonia.

Now some people would get bored or go insane living a life of pure pleasure with no suffering. But that all depends on who you are as a person. If you are someone who finds value in suffering, then it would be likely that you would get bored or go insane living a life of pure pleasure with no suffering. But if you are someone like me who instead feels empowered and immense value towards living a life of pure pleasure with no suffering, then these types of people will never get bored or go insane or find their lives to be of less value if they lived such a life of pure pleasure with no suffering. Also, we are all designed differently by evolution. Some are prone to depression while others are not. In that same sense, some people are designed to find meaning and value towards other things in life besides pleasure and that if these types of people were to live a life of pure pleasure with no suffering or despair, then they might go completely bored or insane. But people such as me who are designed to seek pleasure and find pleasure as the greatest thing in life, we would not feel bored and such living a perfect happy life. Also, I will never have value towards anything else in life and view pleasure as having less value because it is, again, programmed into my own design to view pleasure as the greatest thing and nothing can change that. Even if I could change that, I would never do that because in doing so, I would have become the lesser person.

Since feelings of love and pleasure feel like the greatest things to me in life and that nothing else in life compares (other than the feelings of love and pleasure that others possess), this is what makes these feelings the greatest things in life and is what makes everything else in life virtually nothing in comparison. These feelings may be nothing more than science and brain chemistry which makes them not all that special and great in terms of science. But there is a big difference between how nonspecial and ungreat these feelings are in terms of science and how special and great they are to us based on our own personal experience of these feelings. But if your own personal experience in life somehow tells you that these feelings are not that great or not even great at all for that matter and that other things in life have greater value, then you obviously have not experienced these feelings nearly as profound or meaningful as I have to know that they are the greatest things in life. Since your experience of these feelings is not nearly as profound or meaningful as mine, that would make you a lesser being who would be some steps down from my status as a superior human being and would make you some steps towards being an inferior biological robot. But, of course, I am the inferior biological robot now since I can no longer have any such pleasurable experiences whatsoever due to my depression and severe chronic anhedonia. But, of course, you should still have value towards the pleasure that is lost in people with depression or anhedonia. I would still have compassion and such towards these people despite knowing that they are inferior biological robots.

Some might say that the great meanings I have applied to feelings of love and pleasure through my experience of these feelings are false meanings and that things like intelligence have the true greater meaning in life. But there is no scientific proof of that. Also, we all find our own personal things in life that have the true great meaning. So for someone who only values other things in life like intelligence and has little to no value towards feelings of love and pleasure, this person would be, in my eyes, a cold and inferior biological robot. But who I would be in this person's eyes would be an inferior pleasure-seeking fool. I don't care what it is you have to say such as that intelligence can be used for far more greater things in life and that this is what you personally think gives intelligence the greater value and meaning, my personal experience of love and pleasure says to me that these feelings are the greatest things in life. To me, intelligence that is not used in gaining more pleasure or as a plan to obtain more pleasure has no value to me because such intelligence and such a way of pursuing intelligence as the greater thing in life is "robotic" and is something a highly intelligent robot from the future would do (not an emotionally sensitive human being like me). I would never abandon my value towards my feelings and those of others in any way. The only intelligence I will pursue in life would be something that would keep my full title of an "emotionally sensitive human being" by both making it likely to help me recover my ability to experience pleasure as well as bring others pleasure. This intelligence would be what is gained from therapies and other things to help recover from depression and anhedonia. This intelligence I have acquired would also help bring others pleasure and help them recover from depression and anhedonia as well.

Now if you are going to say something such as that feelings of love and pleasure come from having value towards other things in life in the first place and that we can't experience these feelings through having value towards these feelings alone and that this is why only other things in life have the greater value, this would be false. I value my own feelings of love and pleasure greatly and experience even more feelings of love and pleasure knowing that these are the greatest feelings to me and that I am able to experience them in life.

Now some would also say that your personality, thoughts, attitude, knowledge, and even pleasure are all one thing and cannot be separated. For example, you cannot have a personality without thoughts, knowledge, etc. So these people might then say that all these things have the same value since they're all the same thing and that I should not be able to compare intelligence and pleasure and say that pleasure is superior. If this is true, then what I whould really be saying instead is that the state of mind I am in due to my depression and anhedonia is inferior and "robotic" compared to the state of mind I would be in if I was happy and didn't have depression or anhedonia. This "inferior robotic" state of mind I am in would still be inferior and robotic regardless of how much I use it in doing great things in my life, helping others, and other things.

Now aside from that, other things such as pursuing your dreams in life (besides your dream to fully regain your lost pleasure through therapies and other things), this has no value and is "robotic" as well. You should instead give up on these dreams and instead be the superior human being by focusing on regaining your pleasure first. But if pursuing your dreams is the most effective way to help recover your ability to experience pleasure, then you should pursue your dreams. But if it isn't, then you should just give up on them for now and instead attend to the most effective ways that could bring back your ability to experience pleasure. Only when your ability to experience love and pleasure is fully recovered should you then go back to pursuing these types of dreams. But if you can never fully recover your lost love and pleasure, then at least you have spent your entire life by being the superior human being who has tried to recover these things. If you are going to say something such as that living your life trying to fully recover these lost feelings instead of accepting this loss and moving on is a wasted life, it's not a wasted life. Like I said before, feelings of love and pleasure are the only greatest aspects of me as a human being and are the only things that make my own personal life worth living. So for me to abandon them and instead live my life for other reasons besides trying to fully recover them, THAT would be the wasted life for me.

Your thoughts, knowledge, attitude, and personality are what is basically nothing more than science and brain chemistry and are nothing special and great. They are nothing more than any other part of the brain responsible for biological "robotic" functions (such as parts of the brain responsible for movement, breathing, etc.). But pleasure is your emotional well-being here and is the only greatest aspect of you as a human being because all other aspects of you as a human being are "robotic" in comparison to pleasure. Since love and pleasure feels "good," that is what makes it "full of life" (better) in comparison despite the fact that these other functions of you are biological functions of a living organism. Since love and pleasure feels good, that is what makes it the best thing about you as a person. But since all other functioning of you as a human being does not feel good, that is what makes it nothing in comparison to pleasure. So in other words, anything in life that can't bring me the greatest things to me (which are love and pleasure), then these things have no meaning to me (even who I am as a person since not even that can bring me any feelings of love or pleasure now). Since I have lost my ability to love and feel pleasure, then nothing in life has any value, worth, or meaning to me (even things that used to bring me feelings of love and pleasure). However, the only thing that does is the feelings of others and living my life trying to regain my lost feelings of love and pleasure. I don't care about science or gaining intelligence in life because these things don't make me feel pleasure nor will they help me recover my ability to experience pleasure. I don't even care about pursuing my dreams in life because not even doing that brings me any pleasure.

Now the only life worth living and the only thing that would be closest to making you a better person if you had depression or anhedonia (in addition to having half the title of "emotionally sensitive" by having value towards the pleasure of others by living to bring others pleasure) would be having the full complete title by not accepting your loss of pleasure and living your life trying to regain your lost pleasure through therapy, medication, or other things.

Some people would say that being a better person can only come from your attitude and personality in life as well as your actions. But based on my arguments here, these things have virtually nothing to do with you being a better person as these things are virtually nothing in comparison to love and pleasure. Therefore, love and pleasure are the only things that make you a better person. Technically, who you are as a person would be all things combined (your thoughts, knowledge, attitude, personality, and even pleasure, etc.). So in this sense, pleasure would just be a sensation and not who you are as a person. But even so, this sensation is better than all other things about you as a person combined and would make a part of you (again, your pleasure) better than people who have less of it.

Some people would also say that without pain and suffering, then there can be no pleasure. But this would be false. A baby can be born into this world without having yet experienced pain or suffering and immediately feel happiness and love being in the arms of a mother. This baby would be able to then experience full happiness and love in life having no future pain or suffering as well. The only way for him/her to experience less pleasure in life is for him/her to develop a sense of value towards having struggles and suffering in life and then having less value towards living a life of pure pleasure with no struggles and suffering as a result. That, or just being bored living such a nice happy life which are both things that would never happen to me since I find great value living a perfect happy life.
Some would also say that without intelligence, then there can be no awareness of pleasure. Although this would be true because if you were a retard with no knowledge and such, then you wouldn't be able to even know that any pleasure you experience has any great meaning. But according to my arguments, intelligence and such is nothing compared to pleasure and having mindless pleasure would still be the best thing even in this situation. But despite the fact that intelligence is nothing more than biological robotic functioning, it still has value only in the sense of bringing you and others pleasure in life and keeping you and others alive to experience more pleasure. If intelligence is just used for other things in life other than the sake of pleasure or is not used as a plan to obtain more pleasure, then it has no value.

If I never had depression or anhedonia in my entire life and I never knew just how awful losing pleasure would feel, then I think I would not have valued pleasure to such an extreme as to even call Hitler himself great for having it. I would instead view him as a subhuman monster for killing all those innocent people. But now that I have lost my pleasure, I realize just how great and absolutely necessary pleasure is for me in life and that it makes even the most wicked people great and absolutely nothing can take away from that greatness (other than them losing their own pleasure). It makes even the most wicked people great and makes even the most innocent people inferior biological robots if these innocent people didn't have it regardless of how caring and innocent these people are and what great things they do in life. Even if I were to fully recover my ability to experience pleasure, I would still never forget the immense value that pleasure has and I would still view Hitler as a great person for having it.

Now pleasure, in terms of evolution, is something we experience to let us know that things are good in life and that our lives are worth living. But if you had no pleasure and somehow found your life worth living anyway, then you would be delusional and your life would still be worthless because pleasure is the only thing that encourages our survival in life. To somehow think your life is worth living through knowledge, thoughts, attitude, and personality alone is delusional and does not comport with our evolutionary design. I mentioned before that the only life worth living without pleasure would be living your life trying to fully regain your lost pleasure. So you might be thinking that if this is the case, then why can't you find other things in life worth living for besides pleasure? As I said before, we are designed by evolution to find our lives to be good and worth living only through pleasure alone because pleasure is the only thing that encourages this (which would be our encouraged survival in life). So the only closest thing to a life worth living through thoughts and such alone without pleasure would be focusing on regaining the very thing that makes your life worth living in the first place. All other things in life besides pleasure don't make our lives worth living and to think so is delusional and is not how evolution designed us. Even focusing on the pleasure of others and bringing them pleasure does not make our lives worth living without our own pleasure to make it worth living for in the first place (in terms of evolution). If these people have other physical or mental disabilities besides a loss of pleasure, then they are not inferior human beings with worthless lives. But if you are going to say that our lives can be worth living without our pleasure by giving our lives the personal worth and meaning that we want, this would be false and delusional because the scientific fact is that we are not designed by evolution to find our lives worth living without pleasure. Pleasure is what makes our lives worth living since it is what encourages our survival in life (making us want to live our lives). To somehow give our own lives worth and meaning without pleasure is something that defies science and our evolutionary design and would, therefore, be false and delusional since there is nothing beyond science or our evolutionary design.

Finally, if you are going to say something such as that:

"Evolution doesn't have intent. It didn't design us with a purpose or goal. It's just a byproduct of genes unable to replicate themselves perfectly. Some evolutionary traits enabled survival, other didn't. Neither trait is right or wrong, relative to the universe or evolution. There's no fundamental rule out there that life must pleasurable or painful. It simply is as it is, and we're left to react accordingly. A parent may suffer extremely in order to help their child. The parent's life may consist primarily of suffering with little to no pleasure. Yet the parent will find their life very meaningful, because they're giving a person they love deeply the opportunity to live a quality life. Parenthood is one of the most meaningful aspects to many people's lives, and without a doubt the majority would agree their life isn't worthless due to it, in spite of pain. I'd say purpose is what gives people's lives worth. Whether one's purpose is to feel lots of pleasure, make scientific discoveries, build technology, be really creative, become a parent, earn lots of money, help others etc. Survival doesn't need to be the focus of a worthy life. Pleasure doesn't need to be the focus of a worthy life. Science and evolution don't demand either. Science can tell you what enables survival, but it won't tell you that you ought survive. Likewise, science can tell you what people generally find pleasurable, but it wont tell you that you ought dedicate your life to pleasure."

What I would have to say against that is panic is the brain's alarm response to warn us to escape from danger and that we should get out of this dangerous situation in order for us to survive. Therefore, pleasure would also be the same in the sense that it is also what tells us to survive in terms of doing good things in our lives that benefit our survival. Therefore, knowing this, doesn't science (our evolutionary design) tell us that we need to survive? Not only does pleasure encourage our survival, but it also encourages our survival in the sense that we need pleasure as a means of encouraged survival in life (a life of worth). For example, I would feel happy right now knowing that I am able to feel happy in life if it weren't for my depression and anhedonia right now and that I am experiencing and allowed to experience the greatest things to me in life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism

I counted 7178 words :O

Thanks for sharing.

Aristotle was someone who said that there is value and such in suffering and despair. But based on my arguments, I think I might have proven him wrong.

I think you've written an article that is so long people wont read it.

I would suggest you summarise what your points are. Because and no offense, I neither agree nor disagree, but this a forum. Not a place to test your term papers. I know people shouldn't be so lazy, they should spend the 10 minutes it would take to read it, but they don't.