Philosophy Now Forum

Any personal meanings we create in life are all neutral as they all come from the exact same functions of our brains that create nothing but neutral words, sounds, images, etc. For example, create any sound, letter, image, etc. in your mind that provokes no emotional response and is bland to you. Therefore, all other meanings we create in life are the same in that sense because, again, they are all the same functioning in our brains. So that makes our own created meanings all neutral as well. These created meanings are no different than the creation of neutral words, sounds, images, etc. because there is no difference between any personal meanings we create in life as opposed to neutral words, sounds, images, etc. because they are the exact same things. Our personal meanings we create in life may make us do good things in life, but they are all still neutral anyway. Only our pleasure itself that arises from any personal meanings we create in life is good (positive) and is the only thing that makes our lives good and worth living and you would be delusional to somehow think that, without your ability to experience pleasure, that your life is still somehow good and worth living. Also, pleasure, in of itself, is a good experience and we do not need any created meanings in life (which would be knowledge, thoughts, etc.) to tell us that it is good. So if you were happy, but had no knowledge or thoughts whatsoever, your happiness would still feel good to you despite the fact that you are completely unaware of what happiness is and the fact that you are unaware of the word "good" and what it even means. Therefore, any created meanings in life by themselves do not tell us that anything is good (they are not the activating of the pleasure centers of our brains which is the only thing that gives us the "good" signal). The same thing goes for depression. Depression in of itself is a bad experience and we do not need any knowledge or thoughts to tell us that it is bad.

Therefore, even everything else in life and even your own attitude is neutral and you are free to harm and take advantage of others as long as it gives you the most pleasure in life. However, I would never harm others despite my own personal beliefs because this is not who I am at all. Also, you are not in the minds of other people anyway. So it's only your own pleasure in life that makes your life good and worth living. Not you helping others and giving them pleasure despite your own absence of pleasure. Finally, the only difference between a thought and such that has meaning to us as opposed to one that doesn't (one that is neutral) would just be the fact that with one meaning, you are experiencing emotion while with another you are not. So it's only our emotions themselves that have the meaning of "good" or "bad." As in terms of one thought that has meaning to us as opposed to another that doesn't, the only difference between these two thoughts is that one sends an emotional signal to the brain while the other doesn't--that is all.

What do you think about drugs (including alcohol)? They give pleasure. Do you think there are limitations to using them? If so then which drugs should be limited and how?

PhilX

So if you were happy, but had no knowledge or thoughts whatsoever, your happiness would still feel good to you despite the fact that you are completely unaware of what happiness is and the fact that you are unaware of the word "good" and what it even means.

Pleasure - a sense of well-being; feeling good - is possible for a simple creature without any thoughts; is, in fact, the only possible state for a such a creature to aspire to. "Happiness", however, is a far more complex concept, attainable by creatures with thoughts and compound emotions and sustained states of mind. The more convoluted a brain the creature has, the more conditions most be met in order for it to be happy for an appreciable period of time. Time perception varies according to life-span: for a rat to register happiness might be a couple of minutes; for an elephant, it would have last at least a day. A human can experience brief periods of happiness in a life that is not happy overall, or he might be a happy person, which means he experiences happiness on a regular basis throughout his life.

To experience happiness, a human only needs to be (on the particular occasion) in reasonable physical comfort and safety, plus achieve one particular success (eg. a promotion, a marriage proposal, a perfect souffle). In order to be a happy person, however, one must be psychologically predisposed, plus have a satisfactory environment, plus be able to meet a succession of challenges, plus be able to relate to other people in a positive way, plus contribute to an entity larger that himself (charity, society, cause, ideal, art, etc.) plus receive affection and respect from others. These criteria may be measured on any scale form the sheltered workshop to the UN Security Council - but I'd put serious money on the former holding more happy people than the latter.

Drugs give you a short time of bliss and then you wake up and you feel very bad. And you are less in a position to get along in an imperfect world. So drugs are a bad idea.

To feel some pleasure in an imperfect world one needs to develop stategies about how to endure hardships.

Example:

Yesterday I decided to go to a series of lectures instead of enjoying in hike in the sunshine and I regretted it. Waiting for the last lecture to come I told myself: Noch eine Verarschung und ich darf heim. (One more "bad joke" = lousy lecture and I can go home.)

It sounds funny in German but not in English. My translation is not very good. But I cheered myself up with this gloomy statement.
And the last lecture was not bad at all.

Looking back at what was we tend to eliminate the negative and to remember the positive. This is also a strategy to get pleasure out of something not really pleasurable.

Mozart was able to endure hardships. His music helps you to endure hardships.