Life is all about pleasure

[Ophiolite]

You mention having suffered depression. Was this medically diagnosed? Are you currently undergoing treatment? If not, why not?

 

Your thoughts, as revealed in your posts, appear to me to be unhealthy. If you find it cathartic to discuss these on a forum, all well and good, but I suspect you would benefit from professional consultation.

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

I only made it through about half of your last post. It appears to be, as Ophiolite suggests, more of a discussion with yourself, than a discussion with us, the readers in this forum.

 

I am not a professional mental health person and would surely say the wrong thing if I tried to "help" you, as one.

 

I have been responding to your ideas, as ideas, and looking for the aspects of them that make sense, and those that do not make sense.

 

The stuff about people that don't like what you are saying, being stupid or not compassionate, seems way out of line to me.

 

If you want only love and compassion from people, you won't get it. The world is not thusly formulated. You have to earn the respect and trust of people that you respect and trust back. Friends, associates, lovers, whatever. And in discussing your pleasure problem with them, you can expect compassion. On the other hand, discussing it here, on a science forum, even in the philosophy section, you should expect an honest critique of your ideas from people...which you have gotten from everyone that has responded.

 

From my experience there is mostly "good" people here. I don't think you should cast doubt on ourcharacters or mental capacities, on the basis of our inability to "please" you, with our responses. Especially since you have already announced your inability to be pleased.

 

...

 

 

I was thinking, while reading the first part of your last post, that you should consider the fact that you still can tell the difference between being pleased and being upset, as an indication that your pleasure/pain differenciators are not completely dormant.

And perhaps the inability to achieve a particular state of rapture has led you to a false conclusion that you can not feel even a little good. But that is just speculation on my part, and is only interesting in that it relates to the topic at hand, not that it is pertainent to your condition.

 

As far as the topic of "life is all about pleasure" goes, I would say that you should add "and the avoidance of pain", if you wanted to be more complete. And logically, if you are capable of knowing you are not feeling good, you therefore know what feeling good would feel like, should you stop feeling bad, or neutral.

 

To this, I return to my question to you, of what do you think of my list of the 100 things that make you feel good?

 

If you instead of looking for all the things that are beautiful and pleasant and comfortable, seek only one, then its an obsession, which I would guess usually turns out to be unhealthy. Whether it be sex, or drugs, or cigarettes, or a beautiful movie star you can't have, or in your case that musical score that would induce rapture, or that special moment you can not, for whatever reasons reproduce, wanting only one thing, having only one thing that makes you happy, is likely to be a problem. Especially if you can't achieve that one thing.

 

Better to look for a bunch of other things that are just a little bit nice.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited November 17, 2014 by tar

[MattMVS7]

Summary: All our own personal created meanings, our values and worths, and even our own morals (such as the ones you have) are all neutral. Thoughts are just thoughts no matter what they are. You can come up with a bland thought in your mind and you can then proceed to come up with a moral thought. But they are no different. They are only different in the sense that they are different words, images, sounds, etc. and that is it. They might send signals to different parts of the brain to make you do different deeds. But even those other parts of your brain are neutral as well. Your thoughts (created meanings of good and bad) cannot somehow project themselves onto other people, other objects, or even other parts of your brain and make these things good or bad. Therefore, since pleasure stands alone by itself as always feeling good no matter what while pain and despair stand alone by themselves as always feeling bad no matter what, this is the reason why pleasure is the only good thing in life while pain and despair are the only bad things in life. As I said before, good and bad are, therefore, scientific properties for this very reason. They are the functioning of those atoms and particles in our brains that give us pleasure as well as pain and despair and even our own neutral thoughts of good and bad cannot somehow project themselves onto our pleasure and suffering and make these things good, bad, or even neutral.

So you would be delusional to think that your life is good or bad or that you are a good or bad person without feelings of pleasure or pain and/or despair since good and bad are actual scientific properties and your personal created meanings in life (your thoughts) can never be these scientific properties. As I said before, "good" is a scientific property (which would be the pleasure itself). Same thing for "bad" while all our thoughts remain a different scientific property (a neutral scientific property that is neither good or bad such as the functioning of the atoms and particles in objects and other things). So you might then be asking how it is that people with anhedonia (which is an absence or very little pleasure) find good meaning about themselves and their lives anyway. This would be because their minds trick them into thinking that they as human beings and that their lives are somehow good. They are tricked by thoughts alone when, in reality, these thoughts are all neutral anyway (neither good or bad). So these people would be delusional to somehow think that they as human beings and that their lives are somehow good anyway without their pleasure.

I realize that it is in our evolutionary design to view other things in life besides our pleasure and suffering as being good or bad in life. But even our own evolutionary design (and, again, our created meanings through our thoughts) are all neutral. Also, I do still help and value others anyway. I can live my life valuing the pleasure of others. But all thoughts and personal meanings we create in life are all neutral. Therefore, even my own value towards the pleasure of others is neutral even if I were to tell myself the message such as that "At least I have given others pleasure because it is good for them despite my own absence of pleasure." I am not in the minds of those other people and cannot experience their pleasure. Therefore, it is only my own pleasure that is good. Even if it were pleasure that is obtained from either witnessing others experiencing pleasure or even me obtaining pleasure from harming others, it would still be my own experienced pleasure that is good from my own perspective while the pleasure and suffering of others is only good and bad from their own perspectives. Even if I were somehow a psychopath right now who obtains pleasure from harming others, I would still be a good person since my own pleasure is the only thing that defines me and my life as being good. They also cannot define anything else as being good, bad, or neutral either since they are the separate combined functioning of atoms and particles that have different functions and different properties.

Also, since all atoms and particles are separate from the atoms and particles of our pleasure, then to say that harming someone in order to give you pleasure makes your pleasure bad, this would be false because the combined atoms and particles of the person suffering and other things do not have the same properties of the combined atoms and particles as a whole that make up our pleasure. It would be no different than saying that, since the combined atoms and particles of a piece of metal possess a certain function and properties (which, in this case, we would call "bad"), then that also makes the combined atoms and particles of other materials the same as well (that this also makes them "bad") which is false. Concepts such as good and bad (aside from our experience of pleasure, pain, and despair), these are the subjective thoughts themselves that create these concepts in the brain and are the functioning of the neurons and other things themselves responsible for the creation of these concepts in the brain that do have scientific properties. And, of course, they are also experiences in of themselves that are objectively good and bad and also have scientific properties (which would be the functioning of the neurons and other things that give us pleasure, pain, and despair). Therefore, our thoughts cannot define our pleasure as being something bad or neutral or our pain and despair as being neutral or good. They also cannot define anything else as being good, bad, or neutral either since they are the separate combined functioning of atoms and particles that have different functions and different properties.

Now someone might tell me something such as that I am a good or bad person and the sound waves from that message that person spoke would then enter my brain. However, it is still my own interpretation that determines whether I am a good or bad person. Actually, as I just stated before, all those interpretations and messages are all neutral anyway and it would only be my own pleasure that makes me and my life good. Therefore, how good one is (their level of greatness) and how good one's life is solely depends on the level of pleasure they have in life. Also, since pleasure always feels good in of itself no matter what while pain and despair always feel bad in of themselves no matter what and this is something that can never change while our thoughts (perceptions) of good and bad in life can change, this would also mean that our perceptions in life are neither good or bad. Some people might claim that suffering feels good to him/her. But he/she would be lying. It would only be the pleasure itself that is obtained from his/her suffering that feels good to him/her while the suffering stands alone by itself as always feeling bad.

Even our own actions are neutral as well and they are the result of atoms and particles. Our thoughts of good and bad cannot even project themselves onto our own actions and make them good or bad either. As for a question one might ask such as that if good and bad are nothing more than one's own pleasure and suffering, then why is it that we can even perceive other things in life as being good or bad in the first place and why is it that there are other things in life that are good and bad besides pleasure and suffering? The answer to that would be that we are just designed by evolution to benefit our survival by perceiving other things in life as being good or bad when, in fact, all our thoughts of good and bad are still nothing more than just thoughts anyway including even our own evolutionary design being neutral as well. Even if we perceive our own thoughts as being good or bad, even that perception itself is still nothing but a neutral perception. However, this neutral perception would then send emotional signals to our brain which are either emotions that feel good or bad. Therefore, it's only our own emotions that are good and bad as well as pain itself being bad as well. All other things in life besides our own pleasure and suffering are also nothing but neutral (neither good or bad) atoms and particles as well.

So you might then say something to me such as that "It's still not about your own neutral thoughts and your own pleasure and suffering in life. You can still live a good life through valuing the pleasure of others and giving them pleasure." What I would have to say to that message is that even that quoted message itself is just a neutral thought as well that doesn't make our lives good without our pleasure.

Now some might say that there is no grand purpose in this universe in that we must all live good worthwhile lives and all that is necessary to live is to eat, breathe, etc. and that I should, therefore, be just fine living a life of no pleasure. But my personal experience of pleasure was so profound and meaningful to me that there would absolutely be no way for me to be fine and content living such a life since my personal experience of pleasure (which would be all good feelings including love) tells me that it is the only greatest thing about me as a person and my life. My personal experience now of depression and anhedonia (emotional numbness) which I'm about to explain below is also the worst experience for me and this is yet another reason why I will never be fine and content living a life of little to no pleasure no matter what. Also, the reward system is a very vital part of living (our evolutionary design). Therefore, this is also another reason why many people will never be fine and content living a life with little to no pleasure just like me no matter what.

In conclusion, I would like to say, again, that I have depression and severe chronic anhedonia (emotional numbness) in which I have no brief moments of any pleasure to any degree whatsoever and there is nothing good or worthwhile about me or my life anymore. If I choose to do things in my life anyway, I will feel enraged due to the fact that none of these things are actually good in my life and that will make me feel even more enraged towards my loss (absence) of pleasure. Therefore, I will instead let me, my life, and all my dreams waste away because at least that makes me feel less enraged and less depressed towards myself and my life. My anhedonia has lasted all day everyday for many months now and I don't think it will get any better. I am also an atheist and this makes me feel even more enraged since I am unable to experience pleasure both in this life as well as in an eternal life of joy which would be heaven (which I now know is a false promised afterlife).

Edited November 18, 2014 by MattMVS7

[Strange]

Summary: All our own personal created meanings, our values and worths, and even our own morals (such as the ones you have) are all neutral. Thoughts are just thoughts no matter what they are.

...

As I said before, good and bad are, therefore, scientific properties for this very reason.

 

It doesn't matter how often you say it, it still isn't true. You are simply projecting your own problems onto everyone else. (And possibly losing whatever sympathy you might have had initially.)

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

OK, let's say for a moment that everyone is a bunch of unthinking, unfeeling atoms and particles. Who would care to know such a thing...nobody...but since there is at least TAR who cares, your whole last post is false, because I am more than my own pleasure, AND my own pleasure is bound up in the thoughts and feelings of "other" clumps of Matt pronounced unthinking, unfeeling nuetral clumps of particles. Therefore, (as you would say) life is obviously more than consisting of neutral, meaningless stuff. Regardless of your lack of pleasue about it. There is someone who made up the word you are labeling yourself with, as if it mattered to not have pleasure. They would not have made up the word, if it was not better to not have the condition. They would not have made up the word unless they thought it would be "good" to have a name for the condition, so someone with it could at least know that someone was aware of their condition, and it therefore mattered to learn about it and care what happened to the person without the pleasure, and perhaps to look for a way to give the person back the ability to have pleasure. And if this was and is the case, that somebody cares, then just your pleasure is not the only thing that exists or fails to exist.

 

There must be other people, other consciousnesses, other wills, other purposes, other judges of good and bad.

 

You are not the beginning and end of all there is.

 

There is the rest of us. And I can absolutely say, with complete assurity that I am more than a neutral lump of clay.

 

So life has something to do with pleasure, and the avoidance of pain. But I care about it, and others care about it and consider it going on before one is even born and after one dies. I know this is true, because people buy life insurance.

 

So I figure you have not convinced many of your argument. The mere fact that it matters to you what others would think in the first place, suggests your argument is rather silly. That is, that the thoughts of others, the theory of mind, exists for you. You know therefore you are not unthinking unfeeling neutral stuff, and you know that others are similarly not neutral unfeeling, unthinking collections of atoms.

 

So stop saying that stuff. It makes no sense. Especially because you are trying to convince other thinking feeling human beings that there is no such thing as a thinking feeling human being. Rather silly an argument, don't you think?

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

OK, let's say for a moment that everyone is a bunch of unthinking, unfeeling atoms and particles. Who would care to know such a thing...nobody...but since there is at least TAR who cares, your whole last post is false, because I am more than my own pleasure, AND my own pleasure is bound up in the thoughts and feelings of "other" clumps of Matt pronounced unthinking, unfeeling nuetral clumps of particles. Therefore, (as you would say) life is obviously more than consisting of neutral, meaningless stuff. Regardless of your lack of pleasue about it. There is someone who made up the word you are labeling yourself with, as if it mattered to not have pleasure. They would not have made up the word, if it was not better to not have the condition. They would not have made up the word unless they thought it would be "good" to have a name for the condition, so someone with it could at least know that someone was aware of their condition, and it therefore mattered to learn about it and care what happened to the person without the pleasure, and perhaps to look for a way to give the person back the ability to have pleasure. And if this was and is the case, that somebody cares, then just your pleasure is not the only thing that exists or fails to exist.

 

There must be other people, other consciousnesses, other wills, other purposes, other judges of good and bad.

 

You are not the beginning and end of all there is.

 

There is the rest of us. And I can absolutely say, with complete assurity that I am more than a neutral lump of clay.

 

So life has something to do with pleasure, and the avoidance of pain. But I care about it, and others care about it and consider it going on before one is even born and after one dies. I know this is true, because people buy life insurance.

 

So I figure you have not convinced many of your argument. The mere fact that it matters to you what others would think in the first place, suggests your argument is rather silly. That is, that the thoughts of others, the theory of mind, exists for you. You know therefore you are not unthinking unfeeling neutral stuff, and you know that others are similarly not neutral unfeeling, unthinking collections of atoms.

 

So stop saying that stuff. It makes no sense. Especially because you are trying to convince other thinking feeling human beings that there is no such thing as a thinking feeling human being. Rather silly an argument, don't you think?

 

Regards, TAR

 

Thank you for trying to help me out here. Since you (and perhaps a few others here) are the only ones here who apparently care about what I'm saying, then I will continue to discuss this with you. I think what you are saying in the beginning is that since our thoughts and pleasure and all functions of our brain all function as a whole, then that means they all have the same value as pleasure since you cannot separate any of them and compare their value. I'm going to explain my points of view about that below:

 

Now first off, I did not say that we were unthinking people or that any of our thoughts don't "matter." We are able to think and our thoughts do "matter," but they only matter in a neutral sense in that they are not good or bad in terms of scientific facts (scientific facts obviously being the facts of life). If what I'm saying about good and bad being scientific properties is a scientific fact (that they can only be the functioning of those atoms and particles that give us feelings of pleasure and suffering), then good and bad can only mean pleasure and suffering and that's it. All our thoughts of good and bad or any other created meanings for that matter would all just be a different scientific property that is neither good or bad. The functions in our brains that come up with words, sounds, images, etc., this functioning is all the same which would mean that there is nothing different about creating a moral meaning in your mind as opposed to any other bad or even bland meaning. It is all just a matter of different sounds, images, words, etc. and that is it (just simply different activity in those specific functions of the brain and that is it). It would be no different than the different activity of parts of your brain that make you blink, breathe, and walk in different ways.

But since pleasure always feels good in of itself no matter what while pain and despair always feel bad in of themselves no matter what and this is something that can never change, this would mean that they are the scientific properties "good" and "bad." The fact that we can change our perception (thoughts) of what is good and bad means that they are not the scientific properties of good and bad. All other functions of our brain are what they are and nothing can change that. They can only simply be different activities of those parts of the brain and that is it. For example, the function of your brain that causes you to blink cannot be any other different function such as the function of your brain that causes you to breathe. So to say that your created meanings are somehow different and special from any other created meanings would be false because the only way it truly can be different is if the functioning of those parts of the brain that came up with these meanings was a different function of our brains entirely. So any created meanings in our lives are just simply the result of different activities of those functions of our brains that come up with these meanings and that is it. The only way for those meanings to truly be good or bad is if they were no longer meanings at all and were instead a different function of our brains entirely (which would be the function of our brains that give us pleasure and suffering). Again, the functions of our brain that give us pleasure and suffering are what they are in that they always feel good and bad in of themselves independently of each other no matter what and this is what makes them the scientific properties "good" and "bad."

 

Also, although pain and pleasure might be one function as a whole because some might say that we cannot separate our pain, thoughts, knowledge, etc. from our pleasure because all functioning of our brains is all one thing as a whole. These people might then go on to say that all our functioning of our brains is of the same value and worth since they are a whole and we cannot separate any of these functions and compare them. So if that's the case, then what I should be saying here is that the state of mind we would be in without our ability to experience pleasure would be a neutral state of mind as opposed to being in a state of mind in which we have pleasure (which would be a good state of mind) or in a state of mind in which we have pain and/or despair (which would be a bad state of mind). This neutral state of mind I just stated would still be neutral (neither good or bad) regardless of how much we use that neutral state of mind in helping others and doing great things in our lives and it would make everything neutral from our perspectives no matter what and no matter how much we viewed things in life as being good anyway.

 

Also, if you were in both a state of mind in which you had pleasure (a good state of mind) as well as pain (a bad state of mind), you might then be asking would you then be a good or bad person? The answer to that would be that the pleasure and pain would cancel each other out in terms of good and bad. So if you had an equal amount of pleasure and pain going on at the same time, you would actually be in a neutral state of mind. But if you had more pleasure than the amount of pain you are also experiencing at the same time, then you would be in a good state of mind (just not as good as if you didn't have the pain to begin with). Same thing applies if you had more pain than pleasure in which you would be in a bad state of mind.

But you might then be asking that if good and bad don't exist in terms of our thoughts, then how is it that we find meaning in this life and help others out anyway? It would be because we are just designed by evolution to benefit ours and the survival of others. However, none of that I just mentioned is anything good or bad since they are, again, not the scientific properties of good and bad (which would be feelings of pleasure and suffering). If what I'm saying here has the potential to be true, then I wish to someday get this scientifically tested and demonstrated as true or false. I wish to prove to everyone once and for all whether one's own pleasure is truly the only good thing in life, that one's own pain and despair are the only bad things in life, and that everything else in life is neutral (neither good or bad).

Edited November 19, 2014 by MattMVS7

[Ophiolite]

Thank you for trying to help me out here. Since you are the only one here who apparently cares about what I'm saying, then I will continue to discuss this with you.

I care about the conflicts you are experiencing. That produced my concerned queries in a recent post. Since you studiously ignored that post and, in this one, make it clear you do not consider my concerns for you to be genuine, or relevant, I am changing my status to: I cared about the conflicts you are experiencing. Good luck resolving your issues, but the route I proposed is one you should consider.

[MattMVS7]

I care about the conflicts you are experiencing. That produced my concerned queries in a recent post. Since you studiously ignored that post and, in this one, make it clear you do not consider my concerns for you to be genuine, or relevant, I am changing my status to: I cared about the conflicts you are experiencing. Good luck resolving your issues, but the route I proposed is one you should consider.

 

I forgot to mention that if you also care about me, then you are considered important to me from my perspective as well and you are free to talk about my previous post I just made here as well.

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

I am just about finished here, as well. You are not caring about how we feel and what we say. Just repeating your same arguments which people have already countered with no direct responses from you.

 

To sum up, I think you are too obsessed with your own inability to regain some state of bliss you once or used to experience.

 

Your premises are not correct, or at least they are not in allignment with the thoughts and insights I have had over my 60 years of life, so far. There is a significant difference between listening to a songbird and a jackhammer, and there is not even a little possibility that you can prove the two are the same thing. They simply are not the same thing, and when we sense and remember the one and characterise it and talk about it, and we sense and remember the other, and characterise it and talk about it, the two are clearly and factually different things. In many many ways.

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

I am just about finished here, as well. You are not caring about how we feel and what we say. Just repeating your same arguments which people have already countered with no direct responses from you.

 

To sum up, I think you are too obsessed with your own inability to regain some state of bliss you once or used to experience.

 

Your premises are not correct, or at least they are not in allignment with the thoughts and insights I have had over my 60 years of life, so far. There is a significant difference between listening to a songbird and a jackhammer, and there is not even a little possibility that you can prove the two are the same thing. They simply are not the same thing, and when we sense and remember the one and characterise it and talk about it, and we sense and remember the other, and characterise it and talk about it, the two are clearly and factually different things. In many many ways.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Since this is a science forum and not a depression forum, then this is why I am talking about my "theories" here rather than engaging in a conversation about my depression and anhedonia (conversations that you have recommended me to engage with instead). Also, my arguments have not even been refuted. Rather, others have just simply voiced their personal opinions which have not refuted any of my arguments at all. So I will first present this one last new argument I made of how good and bad can only be defined in terms of evolution. I must get this argument out of the way first because my work here is not done. Only then can we talk about other things:

 

Now speaking in terms of evolution, our minds are designed to experience emotions from our perceptions (thoughts) for a very important reason. First off, our thoughts are nothing more than what is used for rationalizations and problem-solving while our emotions are what encourage our survival in life. So if you have the perception (thought) that there is a wild animal that is going to attack you, that would then send an emotional signal to the fear center of your brain in order to encourage you to get out of there so that you survive. Same thing with experiencing pleasure. Pleasure is what also encourages us to benefit our survival and the survival of others as well (although pleasure can be misused in not benefiting our survival such as harming ourselves and others). Where I'm getting at with all of this is that our thoughts alone do not encourage our survival. The word "good" means "looking forward to things in life," "being encouraged in life," etc. But you cannot be encouraged in life without any emotions since only our emotions (as well as pain) are what is designed to encourage us to survive.

The quoted term "looking forward to things in life" as well as any other terms for the word "good" are all derived from what only pleasure can achieve since "good" means "Our encouraged survival in life to benefit ours and others survival." Thoughts alone without our emotions may make us do great things in life and make us benefit ours and others survival. But that is not the same thing as being "good" (our "encouraged survival in life"). Same thing applies with having no fear or any other emotions, but choosing to run away from a wild animal that is attacking you anyway. That is not the same thing as our "encouraged survival" either while you are running away from this dangerous animal in order to survive. Also, "good" and "bad" are both our "encouraged survival in life." The difference is that our encouragement to survive in order to benefit ours and others survival (which would be pleasure) is the "good" version of our "encouraged survival."

But things such as fear, pain, and despair are evolution's "warning" version of our "encouraged survival" since they warn us that something is wrong in life. So "warning" in terms of evolution is what is "bad" which makes pain and despair the bad version of "encouraged survival." Therefore, this is why only pleasure is good while only pain and despair are bad while everything else in life is neutral (neither good or bad). So this is the reason why you cannot be a good or bad person and that your life cannot be good or bad if you did not have feelings of pleasure, pain, or despair.

Now there may be other definitions of the words "good" and "bad" out there that others might have proposed, but they are all still derived from our evolutionary design which would be our "encouraged survival" in life (which would, again, be definitions that are derived from our emotions as well as our pain). If, for example, another definition of the word "good" means objects and people that help us avoid suffering, anything that helps us accept our losses and move on in life, or our actions of helping others, then even that is derived from pleasure and can only be achieved through pleasure because someone might then tell those with anhedonia (absence of pleasure) to be encouraged in life knowing that these things are good and that his/her actions of helping others is good despite his/her loss of pleasure.

But as I just stated before, this person cannot be "encouraged" or "look forward" to those things in life without his/her pleasure since pleasure is the only thing that can achieve those quoted things (pleasure being all good feelings including love and motivation). The term "looking forward to" and any other such terms here are derived from "our encouraged survival" since you cannot look forward to anything in life without being encouraged. Even things such as value, worth, and beauty are also derived from "our encouraged survival" (which would be pleasure). Other things in life aside from one's own pleasure might be defined as "good," but without our encouragement (pleasure), then this version of "good" is nothing more than a neutral thought that doesn't make us or our lives anything "good" in reality without our pleasure.

Same concept applies for "bad." Even if we were to somehow redefine the word "encouragement" to something else besides our pleasure and then tell someone to be encouraged in life knowing that there are other good and greater things in life aside from his/her pleasure, even this would still be nothing more than a neutral thought. As I said before, our "looking forward in life," "being encouraged in life," etc. is all derived from our own pleasure. So this is the reason why people are only fooling themselves into thinking that they are good people and that their lives are somehow good independent of their pleasure or if they had no pleasure in life. These thoughts of "good" and "bad" or any other created meanings for that matter that these people have are all nothing more than neutral thoughts.

As I said before, thoughts are just thoughts no matter what they are and the only difference is that they are different sounds, images, words, etc. and that is all. They might send different signals to different parts of the brain, but even those other parts of our brain besides our pain and emotions are not our "encouraged survival" (meaning, that they are neither good or bad) and nor is anything else in life good or bad either aside from our own pleasure, pain, and despair. You are also not in the minds of others and cannot experience their pleasure, pain, and despair. Therefore, it is only your own pleasure, pain, and despair that are the only good and bad things from your own perspective while the pleasure, pain, and despair of others are the only good and bad things from their own perspectives.

The pleasure, pain, and despair of others from your own perspective is neutral since it is nothing more than a neutral thought. Even if it is a good or bad value you have towards the pleasure, pain, and despair of others, that is still nothing more than a neutral thought. Therefore, how good one is (their level of greatness) and how good one's life is solely depends on the level of pleasure he/she has in his/her life. Same thing applies for how bad one is and how bad his/her life is.

There might even be definitions of the word "good" that others might claim don't require pleasure. However, that version of "good" is nothing more than a neutral thought that doesn't make us or our lives anything good without our pleasure. The real version of "good" would be our pleasure (encouragement) in life. So just thoughts alone do not make us or our lives truly anything good at all without our pleasure. Words such as "good" and other meanings that are good such as beauty and magnificence, they all require us to be encouraged and look forward to things in life in order to validate our lives as being good in the first place from our own perspectives. For example, if a person perceives his/her life being good, then that means he/she would be encouraged and would look forward to things in life. Otherwise, if he/she didn't feel encouraged at all and didn't look forward to anything in life, then his/her life wouldn't be good at all. The lives of others he/she helped despite his/her absence of encouragement and looking forward in life, the lives of those might of been good, but his/her own life would not be good without his/her pleasure. Therefore, since I stated that pleasure is our encouragement (our looking forward in life), then that means that pleasure is the only thing that makes our lives good. Even if someone told him/her something such as that "You might of had no encouragement or looking forward in life, but your life was still good anyway for helping others," even that quoted message itself warrants him/her to be encouraged and look forward in his/her life in order to validate his/her life as being good from his/her own perspective. Again, only pleasure would achieve that.

First off, the idea (thought) that pleasure-seeking will only bring you and others nothing but pain and despair as well as no pleasure at all in the future, even that thought itself is just a neutral thought while the pleasure still stands by itself as being good. Same thing for bad. The idea (thought) that our pain and despair will bring us and others nothing but pleasure and no pain and despair in the future (or at least, much less pain and despair in the future), even that is just a neutral thought while the pain and despair still stands by itself as being bad.

Second, aren't words such as "good" as well as "value" and "worth" used to help people feel encouraged and look forward to things in life? For example, if someone is feeling very depressed and angry with his/her life, wouldn't we then tell this person that his/her life is still good and worth living in order to try and help him/her be encouraged and look forward to things in life? Otherwise, what would be the point of those words if they aren't used to try and help us feel better? But again, as I said before, it's not the words themselves that are "good" since they are neutral, it's just pleasure alone that is good and is the only thing that encourages us in life.

Edited November 20, 2014 by MattMVS7

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

Your logic fails when you say something is nothing more than a neutral thought, after you clearly explain why one thought is good while another is bad, in terms of life and survival and common judgement, even your own, of what is good and what is bad.

 

Let's take another aspect of what is good, another aspect that you have even mentioned and look at its relationship to life and survival. It is amoung my list of 100 things that make you feel good, so it gives one pleasure and reward and encouragement and it benefits survival, but it is something you are capable of achieving and knowing you have achieved, and knowing it is good, without requiring the chemical reward and justification and verification that a person without your condition would get, should they acheive this "good" thing. That is, it is "good" to be correct, to not be wrong, to match your model of reality to the world and the world to your model of it. This benefits your survival in actual terms, because you find the water hole. If you were wrong about where the water hole was, you would not find it, except by accident. And you would then die of thirst and not be able to bring water back to your family. Or remember where your family lived.

So its good to be correct. With or without pleasurable reward chemicals. Just making a match of reality to your sense of it, is good. Just being alive is good. Just being able to sense and remember is good. In and of itself.

 

Not a neutral thing at all. By any living person's judgment of the situation.

 

Regards, TAR

Hey,

 

Come to think of it, you drink something when you are thirsty. Why?

 

You are not so void of pleasure capability as you allow yourself to think.

 

You are able to take action to avoid your thirst, thereby "satisfying" your thirst.

 

This is proof that you look forward to satisfying your thirst, and you know that water will do the job. Therefore drinking water will be pleasurable, should you be thirsty. All the elements of good and bad are present, the desire to live is spurred on by having uncomfortable sensations that you seek through your actions to eliviate. When the uncomfortable sensations are gone, you are satisfied.

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

Your logic fails when you say something is nothing more than a neutral thought, after you clearly explain why one thought is good while another is bad, in terms of life and survival and common judgement, even your own, of what is good and what is bad.

 

Let's take another aspect of what is good, another aspect that you have even mentioned and look at its relationship to life and survival. It is amoung my list of 100 things that make you feel good, so it gives one pleasure and reward and encouragement and it benefits survival, but it is something you are capable of achieving and knowing you have achieved, and knowing it is good, without requiring the chemical reward and justification and verification that a person without your condition would get, should they acheive this "good" thing. That is, it is "good" to be correct, to not be wrong, to match your model of reality to the world and the world to your model of it. This benefits your survival in actual terms, because you find the water hole. If you were wrong about where the water hole was, you would not find it, except by accident. And you would then die of thirst and not be able to bring water back to your family. Or remember where your family lived.

So its good to be correct. With or without pleasurable reward chemicals. Just making a match of reality to your sense of it, is good. Just being alive is good. Just being able to sense and remember is good. In and of itself.

 

Not a neutral thing at all. By any living person's judgment of the situation.

 

Regards, TAR

Hey,

 

Come to think of it, you drink something when you are thirsty. Why?

 

You are not so void of pleasure capability as you allow yourself to think.

 

You are able to take action to avoid your thirst, thereby "satisfying" your thirst.

 

This is proof that you look forward to satisfying your thirst, and you know that water will do the job. Therefore drinking water will be pleasurable, should you be thirsty. All the elements of good and bad are present, the desire to live is spurred on by having uncomfortable sensations that you seek through your actions to eliviate. When the uncomfortable sensations are gone, you are satisfied.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Aren't words such as "good" as well as "value" and "worth" used to help people feel encouraged and look forward to things in life? For example, if someone is feeling very depressed and angry with his/her life, wouldn't we then tell this person that his/her life is still good and worth living in order to try and help him/her be encouraged and look forward to things in life? Otherwise, what would be the point of those words if they aren't used to try and help us feel better? If a person feels no pleasure at all (no encouragement), then how can one say that his/her life is good?

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

Right. It is better to live and worse to die. Life is good. Death is bad.

 

When in doubt, do the thing that promotes life and avoids death. This will be good.

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

Right. It is better to live and worse to die. Life is good. Death is bad.

 

When in doubt, do the thing that promotes life and avoids death. This will be good.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Now you say that there are other things in life that are good and bad besides our own created meanings of good and bad (our thoughts). But how can that be since our thoughts cannot project themselves onto other people or other objects and make these things good or bad? Wouldn't those other objects and other people by themselves stand as nothing more than meaningless atoms and particles and that it's only our thoughts themselves that are those meanings? Therefore, couldn't you be a psychopath and harm others and still be a good person just because you think you are and that the bad thoughts of others have towards you cannot be projected onto you and make you a bad person?

Edited November 20, 2014 by MattMVS7

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

Depends how you are using the word "our".

 

There is a "thing" I am noticing as I age, and think about meaning and such, that exists quite independently of a single entity that contains the thing, or of a single entity that is contained by the thing.

 

Been thinking about death and thought and purpose and such lately, rather continually, as my dad, the one in the attached photo of my family, has suffered a fall on the head, and had brain surgury last week. He was slow waking up, and sometimes with the drugs and the age, and sleepfulness or stuperness, just a small phrase or joke is very hopeful and meaningful, and sometimes he does not know what is going on and we wonder what we still have of him, and think about what his life will be like, going forward.

 

So, the main issue I have with your take, is your ignorance of the fact that "our" has two meanings. The one that is only talking about you, and the one that is talking about your whole team.

 

You can have a thought from either perspective, and sometimes the two thoughts don't jive. Actually there are three perspectives you can have a thought from, as there are three persons in grammar. First person. Second Person and third person. (I accidentally had a capitalization inconsistency there, but I let it stand, in case I meant something by it, subconsciously.)

 

"Our" is second person. Except when you use the royal we as in the queen saying "We are displeased". Or use it in the generic sense like "we each have two eyeballs".

 

So, if life was all about your own pleasure, there would not be a second and third person in our grammar and our thoughts and our actions. We even go one step further to include a "personage" that holds ideals and laws quite independantly of me and you.

 

How one likes to characterise that additional personage is the stuff of religion and philosophy. The same internalized thought of this reality exists, in a way for both the theist and the atheist. Reality is real for both and everyone.

 

The universe is ours. Whether you take that as just your's, just your's and mine, or as everybody's or even as somehow belonging to it, and it belonging to us permanently, no matter what.

 

So, just knowing the place is here is good. Just that the place is here is good. Whether you individually are having a good or a bad day.

 

Therefore, its not all about pleasure, because it would exist, with or without an individual's internalization and characterisation of it.

 

What you might be talking about, instead, is judgment. Do you judge a thing as good or bad, and how do you come upon this judgement. To this, "we" have a long history of philosophy and religion. We have fought wars and built jails and courts, signed and enforced treaties and pacts, built civiliztions and established laws and institutions of medicine and education and technology...to maintain what is good, and fight against what is bad. It is obviously a bigger question than what one person, out of 8 billion, is happy or sad about.

 

Regards, TAR

To this, I would answer the question in your last post as no, a person is not a good person if he/she feels good. A person is a good person if he/she excersises good judgement, is capable and trustworthy, and consistently works at maintaining good things, and eliminating bad things.

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

Depends how you are using the word "our".

 

There is a "thing" I am noticing as I age, and think about meaning and such, that exists quite independently of a single entity that contains the thing, or of a single entity that is contained by the thing.

 

Been thinking about death and thought and purpose and such lately, rather continually, as my dad, the one in the attached photo of my family, has suffered a fall on the head, and had brain surgury last week. He was slow waking up, and sometimes with the drugs and the age, and sleepfulness or stuperness, just a small phrase or joke is very hopeful and meaningful, and sometimes he does not know what is going on and we wonder what we still have of him, and think about what his life will be like, going forward.

 

So, the main issue I have with your take, is your ignorance of the fact that "our" has two meanings. The one that is only talking about you, and the one that is talking about your whole team.

 

You can have a thought from either perspective, and sometimes the two thoughts don't jive. Actually there are three perspectives you can have a thought from, as there are three persons in grammar. First person. Second Person and third person. (I accidentally had a capitalization inconsistency there, but I let it stand, in case I meant something by it, subconsciously.)

 

"Our" is second person. Except when you use the royal we as in the queen saying "We are displeased". Or use it in the generic sense like "we each have two eyeballs".

 

So, if life was all about your own pleasure, there would not be a second and third person in our grammar and our thoughts and our actions. We even go one step further to include a "personage" that holds ideals and laws quite independantly of me and you.

 

How one likes to characterise that additional personage is the stuff of religion and philosophy. The same internalized thought of this reality exists, in a way for both the theist and the atheist. Reality is real for both and everyone.

 

The universe is ours. Whether you take that as just your's, just your's and mine, or as everybody's or even as somehow belonging to it, and it belonging to us permanently, no matter what.

 

So, just knowing the place is here is good. Just that the place is here is good. Whether you individually are having a good or a bad day.

 

Therefore, its not all about pleasure, because it would exist, with or without an individual's internalization and characterisation of it.

 

What you might be talking about, instead, is judgment. Do you judge a thing as good or bad, and how do you come upon this judgement. To this, "we" have a long history of philosophy and religion. We have fought wars and built jails and courts, signed and enforced treaties and pacts, built civiliztions and established laws and institutions of medicine and education and technology...to maintain what is good, and fight against what is bad. It is obviously a bigger question than what one person, out of 8 billion, is happy or sad about.

 

Regards, TAR

To this, I would answer the question in your last post as no, a person is not a good person if he/she feels good. A person is a good person if he/she excersises good judgement, is capable and trustworthy, and consistently works at maintaining good things, and eliminating bad things.

 

First off, let me ask you this. If you had the choice to either be happy and excited towards something in life as opposed to just having no feelings of pleasure or excitement whatsoever with nothing more than just a good thought towards these things in life, which would you choose? I think it's quite obvious you would choose to feel happy and excited which proves right here that pleasure is far better and superior to mere thoughts alone. Or, at least, the combination of having both good thoughts and pleasure in your life is far better and superior to just having these thoughts alone with no pleasure at all.

But you then might counter my argument by asking me something such as that if you had the choice as to feel happy and excited towards harming others or to have no feelings of pleasure whatsoever and instead help others through just mere thoughts alone, which would you choose? You then might say that having no pleasure and instead helping others through moral thoughts would be what is far better and superior. But here again, I will counter this as well by asking you that if you had the choice as to whether to feel happy and excited towards helping others and help these people out through your pleasure and excitement or to instead have no pleasure or excitement whatsoever and instead help these people out through just thoughts alone, which would you choose? I think it's quite obvious you would choose to help others through your pleasure.

So it appears as though having both morality and pleasure in your life is the ultimate combination. But when the choice comes as to whether you would choose to have pleasure or instead morality, that this is something subjective and that there would be many people who would instead choose to be a moral person with no pleasure who helps others instead of being someone who obtains pleasure from harming others. However, when the choice comes to you already being the best moral person you could ever be and that if you had the choice as to whether to just be this moral person with no pleasure in your life or to be both this best moral person you could ever be while having pleasure in your life, that people would instead choose the combination of both being this moral person with pleasure.

Sure, there could be more levels of moral greatness and other forms of greatness that this person could achieve with no pleasure. But if I had to ask him/her as to whether he/she would want to have much pleasure in his/her life in addition and that this wouldn't take away from his/her greatness and won't take away from him/her achieving more greatness, then that is when this person would choose to have pleasure in his/her life in addition. I know that if I had my full pleasure back in life, that this would not make me or my life less great. It would make me even greater. As a matter of fact, having suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure in your life only serves to bring you down and hold you back from you and your lives being that much greater regardless of how great you become and regardless of how much great things you do in your life through your suffering, depression, and lack of pleasure. Suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure can even make you a worse person who is less compassionate and less understanding towards other people who finds bad meaning in his/her life. So you can achieve a higher level of greatness, be a more compassionate and understanding person, and do more great things in your life under the right circumstances if you instead had much pleasure in your life and little suffering and depression in your life.

Many people might claim that the only true way to be a more compassionate and understanding person and do more great things in life as well as help more people would be through your suffering, depression, and lack of pleasure. But this is false because you can change your attitude in order to become a better compassionate and understanding person at any given personal level since your attitude and actions are things you can change by will. You also don't need depression, suffering, and a lack of pleasure in order to do more great things in life and help even more people out. There are people who go through a great amount of suffering and despair and yet, they do not become more compassionate or become a better person in any other sense. As a matter of fact, they can become less compassionate even towards others who suffer the same things and they instead take out their suffering on other people. This would be because they have refused to change their attitude in becoming a better person and have refused to become better in any other sense through other means in life besides suffering, despair, and a lack of pleasure. Therefore, since this holds true, the opposite would hold true as well in that people who have very little suffering and despair in their lives can change their attitude in becoming a better person and better in other ways through other means in life than what suffering, despair, and a lack of pleasure can achieve.

Things such as going through physical torture through physical training in the military, this would have the greater physical benefit. But as for greater mental benefits, you can achieve these through other means in life besides depression and anhedonia (lack of pleasure). As a matter of fact, depression and anhedonia have no greater benefit than living a life of much pleasure and are nothing but pointless misery.

So if you had no pleasure in your life and had much suffering and despair in your life, you could tell yourself things such as that you would be the much better and greater person than if you were someone who had pleasure in life since you would be helping others, doing great things in your life, and being more compassionate and understanding the suffering and lack of pleasure of others through your suffering and lack of pleasure. But here I will ask you, now that you've achieved this level of greatness in your life through your suffering and lack of pleasure, would you prefer now to remain this way or to instead remain just as great, but also have full pleasure and no more suffering in your life in addition? That having this full pleasure in your life with no suffering will not take away from your greatness, will not make you help/understand less people than you ever would through having suffering and no pleasure in life, and won't make you do less great things in life. Therefore, which would you choose?

Again, I'm quite sure you would choose to have full pleasure in life with no suffering in addition to your greatness. Although there might be some people who would get very bored or go insane from living a life of pure bliss, this would not happen to me at all since I find that the only greatest life there is would be living a life of much pleasure and as little suffering as possible while still being a full moral and understanding/compassionate person. So the fact that people would prefer to have much pleasure and as little suffering as possible in addition to their greatness, this means that having much pleasure and little suffering in addition to their greatness is something even greater and would make these people even greater than if they still had a lack of pleasure and still had suffering and depression in their lives. This would make them greater people and would make their lives greater.

So as you can see here, you can be great all you want, achieve all the benefits you want, and help others and do great things in your life as much as you can through your suffering and lack of pleasure (anhedonia) in your life as well as your depression. But you and your life will never be as great as it would be if you had much pleasure and very little suffering/depression in your life in addition to your achieved greatness and in addition to your achieved benefits. Therefore, all the greatest people in history who struggled with depression, suffering, and anhedonia were never as great as they would be if they didn't have any of those struggles in their lives. They might have become great and achieved benefits through their struggles. But they and their lives would never be as great if they instead had much pleasure in their lives with as little suffering as possible in addition to their achieved greatness and in addition to their achieved benefits.

I gave an example before of how the greatest composers could of been even greater if they had their full pleasure in life rather than depression and a lack of pleasure which was that composers not only use their knowledge of music alone to compose music, but they also tap into their emotions in order to come up with emotionally powerful compositions. However, depression and anhedonia are not classified as emotions at all. They are the taking away of your pleasure and the taking away of your other emotions. Therefore, this is why these great composers were not as great as they would of been if they had their full pleasure since depression and anhedonia are not emotions to channel and tap into at all.

Sure, you can create great compositions through intelligence alone and with vast knowledge of how music works and such. But it wouldn't be as great as if you had both this intelligence and knowledge as well as your pleasure and other emotions to tap into. Composers also tap into other emotions besides pleasure such as anger and sadness. However, these are emotions that feel bad and you can create great tragic, gothic, and dark compositions through pure pleasure alone (the pleasure in dark, gothic, and tragic things) and it is unnecessary to have any sort of bad unpleasant feelings and emotions in your life. These tragic, gothic, and dark compositions can be just as great (and even greater) if you created them through pure pleasure alone along with your knowledge of music theory as opposed to them being created through your feelings such as rage and sadness with your knowledge of music theory.

As a matter of fact, if having much pleasure and little suffering/depression in their lives wouldn't take away from the greatness at all of the greatest people in history, then this would mean that their depression, suffering, and lack of pleasure didn't make them any greater at all either. It means that they could of been just as great (and perhaps greater) under the right circumstances through having much pleasure and very little suffering and depression in their lives since the combination of their already-established greatness in addition to having much pleasure and little suffering and depression is the ultimate combination that would make them even greater. Therefore, I and many other people who suffer from depression and anhedonia (lack of pleasure) are inferior with inferior lives compared to our much greater counterparts (the people we would of been if we instead had our full pleasure in life with little suffering in addition to our achieved greatness and in addition to our achieved benefits). We are also inferior with inferior lives compared to those who do have their full pleasure in life with little suffering and little to no depression in addition to their achieved greatness and benefits such as compassion and many other such positive forms of greatness and benefits.

In conclusion, some people might tell me that compassionate and understanding people who live their lives with much pleasure and very little suffering and depression, that these people do not exist since you can only be a better compassionate and understanding person through having gone through suffering, depression, and a lack of pleasure. But you would be false here in saying this. I am one of those happy compassionate and understanding people who once existed. I had my full pleasure in life in the past who was still a fully compassionate and understanding person. As a matter of fact, the depression and anhedonia I am having now only makes me feel less compassionate and less understanding ("indifferent" and "hopeless") and me and my life are now wasted away and down the drain here.

Therefore, as you can clearly see, life, is in fact, all about perfection and living a perfectly happy life of no suffering and no depression regardless of the fact that this is not how this life works. Some people might tell me that living a life of pure bliss with no suffering and no depression is nothing more than a fantasy and they would be right. However, life is still all about living a perfectly happy life with no suffering and no depression anyway. Life is about being perfectly happy despite the fact that this is impossible and that there is no way to achieve that.

You might then say something to me such as that "Thinking your life should be a certain way when it can never be that way is not going to help you get any better in life." Although thinking that life is about being perfectly happy when that's not how life works might very well make some people feel worse, this doesn't make it worse for me. As a matter of fact, I think it actually makes me feel a little less depressed. For example, if someone told me something such as that "Life is about suffering and depression, so deal with it!" This message would be applied to my life itself and would make me feel worse. However, if I told myself the message such as that "This life is meant to be a perfectly happy fantasy world and I am just simply suffering and having depression in a life that is meant to be perfect and perfectly happy despite the fact that this life is not perfect," this would actually make me feel less depressed and less enraged. It would give my life a perfect happy fantasy-feel and meaning to it rather than the hopeless and discouraging messages that others might propose which instead have a bad and hopeless reality-feel and meaning to them.

Based on everything I've said here, a life of pure bliss with no suffering and no depression is the only greatest life there is and is the only thing that would make you the greatest person. No one should want any depression or anhedonia (lack of pleasure) in his/her life whatsoever since it is all pointless and has no greater benefit than living a life of pure bliss.

Edited November 21, 2014 by MattMVS7

[tar]

Matt,

 

Well there is always the realization, that simply being alive is a good thing.

 

I used to be a technical rep and would fret the night before going to a difficult situation that involved a malfunctioning peice of equipment, an unhappy customer and a troubled dealer, on top of taking place someplace where I had never been before.

 

Until I heard one night on the radio a simple saying "ninety percent of success is showing up".

 

After that, I did not worry so much before hand. Just made sure I had the right technical manuals with me, and I just trusted that once I was in the situation, my judgment would be engaged, I had my company behind me, and could call anybody about anything I didn't know, they trusted my judgement and would back up any decisions I made, so I simply showed up and fixed the situation.

 

So under that principle, a similar saying might be applied to this situation. Ninety percent of goodness, is being alive.

 

Sure I would rather be happy than sad, but neither is a mark of greatness, nor of weakness and failure.

 

Saw a picture of a famous writer on the cover of a book my dad was reading a couple years ago. It might have been James Joyce. He looked incredibly depressed. Maybe the wheight of the world was on him. Maybe he thought too hard about all the bad things in the world. I don't know. But it made me sad just to look at the guy.

 

I think we have mirror neurons and suffer to some degree when others suffer and revel somewhat as well in other people's joy.

 

Are these functional in your case? When you see a happy child, is that "better" than seeing a sad one?

 

We are back to your condition. And I don't understand it, or know anything about it. It does not seem quite possible to me, unless it is some chemical deficiency, but if it were chemical, then there would be other aspects of perception and thought that you would not be capable of, because the required chemicals for certain functions were not being manufactured on cue.

 

If moral decisions are made in the same area of the brain that allows someone to put themselves in someone elses shoes, as certain studies have shown, then your ability to tell the difference between good and bad is somewhat tied up with your ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. You have stated a number of times that you cannot put yourself in someone else mind, but I do not feel like this facility is broken in your case. You know what you used to feel like, or that you once felt bliss. In a sense then, you can put yourself in the shoes of this former Matt. If you can do that, then you can put yourself in the shoes of any unseen other, you wish to think about.

 

But here I wander into the minefield of the 7 things you don't say to a vet. I was never in combat, and I never had anhedonia. I couldn't possibly know what it is like, in either case.

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

Matt,

 

Well there is always the realization, that simply being alive is a good thing.

 

I used to be a technical rep and would fret the night before going to a difficult situation that involved a malfunctioning peice of equipment, an unhappy customer and a troubled dealer, on top of taking place someplace where I had never been before.

 

Until I heard one night on the radio a simple saying "ninety percent of success is showing up".

 

After that, I did not worry so much before hand. Just made sure I had the right technical manuals with me, and I just trusted that once I was in the situation, my judgment would be engaged, I had my company behind me, and could call anybody about anything I didn't know, they trusted my judgement and would back up any decisions I made, so I simply showed up and fixed the situation.

 

So under that principle, a similar saying might be applied to this situation. Ninety percent of goodness, is being alive.

 

Sure I would rather be happy than sad, but neither is a mark of greatness, nor of weakness and failure.

 

Saw a picture of a famous writer on the cover of a book my dad was reading a couple years ago. It might have been James Joyce. He looked incredibly depressed. Maybe the wheight of the world was on him. Maybe he thought too hard about all the bad things in the world. I don't know. But it made me sad just to look at the guy.

 

I think we have mirror neurons and suffer to some degree when others suffer and revel somewhat as well in other people's joy.

 

Are these functional in your case? When you see a happy child, is that "better" than seeing a sad one?

 

We are back to your condition. And I don't understand it, or know anything about it. It does not seem quite possible to me, unless it is some chemical deficiency, but if it were chemical, then there would be other aspects of perception and thought that you would not be capable of, because the required chemicals for certain functions were not being manufactured on cue.

 

If moral decisions are made in the same area of the brain that allows someone to put themselves in someone elses shoes, as certain studies have shown, then your ability to tell the difference between good and bad is somewhat tied up with your ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. You have stated a number of times that you cannot put yourself in someone else mind, but I do not feel like this facility is broken in your case. You know what you used to feel like, or that you once felt bliss. In a sense then, you can put yourself in the shoes of this former Matt. If you can do that, then you can put yourself in the shoes of any unseen other, you wish to think about.

 

But here I wander into the minefield of the 7 things you don't say to a vet. I was never in combat, and I never had anhedonia. I couldn't possibly know what it is like, in either case.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Some people would say that the mind is sometimes something that can never recover or even fully recover its ability to experience pleasure and that I am just going to have to be content with that and live my life accepting that my pleasure might never recover and might never fully recover. But I ask you. Do you really think the mind is that pathetic? The mind is truly an amazing complex organ and I would thus be infuriated if it were that pathetic. Also, do you really think I am so inferior and pathetic as to live my life being content and accepting my severe loss of pleasure (accepting that it might never get better or fully recover) and to live my life as an utterly inferior human being with a worthless life regardless of how great and worthwhile others think I am as a person despite my loss of pleasure? As I said before, my personal experience of pleasure was so great and profound and my personal experience now of depression and anhedonia is the worst experience for me and nothing can change that to the point where I would be content with living an entire life of very little to no pleasure. To me, my life of full pleasure that I once had before is the only life for me and I am not someone who is so inferior and pathetic as to accept and be content with a lifelong loss of pleasure. Therefore, I am absolutely intent on regaining my lost life of full pleasure no matter what since it is the only life for me that is of immense value and worth living.

 

Now the reason you would be inferior if you had depression and/or anhedonia is that people such as us experienced pleasure so profoundly and meaningful that we have embraced such feelings of pleasure (pleasure being all good feelings including love) as a vital part of who we are as people. Therefore, to lose such feelings would deem you as an utterly inferior human being and would also deem your life as completely worthless and inferior as well. Feelings of pleasure are a vital part of who we are as human beings (much more important than our personality, attitude, and other characteristics as human beings). So this is why you would be utterly inferior if you were to lose such feelings. Your conscious is what makes you "you" since it is really who you are as a person. Therefore, since pleasure is also a part of your conscious because your conscious is all sensations and such you can experience, then to lose a very vital part of your conscious (which would be your pleasure), this would make you a lesser person.

Edited November 22, 2014 by MattMVS7

[Ophiolite]

 

Therefore, I am absolutely intent on regaining my lost life of full pleasure no matter what since it is the only life for me that is of immense value and worth living.

Suggestion: stop thinking and start living.

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

But its you who has deemed life worthless without pleasure. Scientifically, I would agree that as we developed as a species, a "reason" or two was probably built in to our development. Ways that caused us to do, or allowed us to do the various things we do. Reward chemicals to cause us to want to repeat successful things and punishment chemicals to cause us to avoid destructive things, makes perfect sense. They probably exist, and are part of why we do the things we do. But once they exist, and once we do the things we do, it becomes a different equation. It is not so simple as pleasure=good, pain=evil. There are all the emergent properties that we as humans, and humans as members of society, and society as the creators of laws, and rules and religions and such, that emerge and can and should be entertained as realities of their own. Fueled perhaps by the desires toward and hopes of pleasure, and the strategies and actions that would achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but not relient upon a complete rebuild, a complete rehashing of the whole history of man, every time somebody does something good, or does something bad.

 

You can study the properties of quarks for a very long time, and never see how those quarks would be likely to accidently group into a peanut butter cup. Quarks just do not have any peanut butter cup characteristics. If you cannot see how quarks could possibly group together to become peanut butter cups, would you say that therefore quarks are impotent and unable to group together to become peanut butter cups?

 

You say you cannot ever enjoy even a little taste of pleasure. That its all gone and some ability you once had to have pleasure, is now absent. You are convinced of that, and maybe somehow its chemically true, or physically true, that some combination of signals and synapses can no longer be formed in you brain, for some scientifically true, physical and chemical reasons. But on the other hand, you know yourself that the brain is plastic and can make connections that "get the job done" even onces previous brain cells and connections have been injured, destroyed or comprimised in some manner. People recover from things.

My dad, who had the fall and the brain surgery and didn't wake up for a while, and did not know who I was one night, spoke on the phone to my daughter last night and said "how you doing kiddo." He is still "with us".

 

Heal yourself. Realize you can still look at a crooked picture on the wall, and think it better to straighten it, and after straighening it, feel good about the operation. I know you can do this, because you can form English sentences that have within them the meaning you wished to impart in them. If you could not do this, select a proper word, a correct word, spelled correctly, of the right part of speech and such, you would remain mute. (or illiterate). This ability to speak has also been evolutionarily emergent and would thusly also scientifically be build upon reward chemicals for when we said it right, and punishment chemicals for when we said it wrong. (If the Matt/TAR theories in this direction are reasonable.) In which case, you should not consider that you have lost the whole "being a human being" thing. In fact, I would say that your ability to use words, to match, to make analogies and such is several of my 100 things that make you feel good. In that alone, you can not say that your ability to experience any pleasure is gone. It simply is not gone. You can still find the right word. You still no the difference between the right word and the wrong word. You still therefore know the difference between right and wrong, with no outside help required.

 

Perhaps you should just build up from the little pleasures, forget the bliss, orgasmic, incredible, penultimate joy stuff, and just enjoy a sandwich and a glass of milk, and watch the cloulds go by for a few minutes.

 

Like Ophiolite said.

 

Regards, TAR

Matt,

 

Just noticed on the re-read of my above post, that I made a few mistakes. Like writing no when I meant know. Did you notice the errors on the way through?

in to instead of into

elses instead of else and who knows how many other grammar and constuction flaws

 

It is better to get it right than to get it wrong. Everybody knows this, and feels this. Even a certain person I know who says he gets no "ok" signal when something is good.

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

But its you who has deemed life worthless without pleasure. Scientifically, I would agree that as we developed as a species, a "reason" or two was probably built in to our development. Ways that caused us to do, or allowed us to do the various things we do. Reward chemicals to cause us to want to repeat successful things and punishment chemicals to cause us to avoid destructive things, makes perfect sense. They probably exist, and are part of why we do the things we do. But once they exist, and once we do the things we do, it becomes a different equation. It is not so simple as pleasure=good, pain=evil. There are all the emergent properties that we as humans, and humans as members of society, and society as the creators of laws, and rules and religions and such, that emerge and can and should be entertained as realities of their own. Fueled perhaps by the desires toward and hopes of pleasure, and the strategies and actions that would achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but not relient upon a complete rebuild, a complete rehashing of the whole history of man, every time somebody does something good, or does something bad.

 

You can study the properties of quarks for a very long time, and never see how those quarks would be likely to accidently group into a peanut butter cup. Quarks just do not have any peanut butter cup characteristics. If you cannot see how quarks could possibly group together to become peanut butter cups, would you say that therefore quarks are impotent and unable to group together to become peanut butter cups?

 

You say you cannot ever enjoy even a little taste of pleasure. That its all gone and some ability you once had to have pleasure, is now absent. You are convinced of that, and maybe somehow its chemically true, or physically true, that some combination of signals and synapses can no longer be formed in you brain, for some scientifically true, physical and chemical reasons. But on the other hand, you know yourself that the brain is plastic and can make connections that "get the job done" even onces previous brain cells and connections have been injured, destroyed or comprimised in some manner. People recover from things.

My dad, who had the fall and the brain surgery and didn't wake up for a while, and did not know who I was one night, spoke on the phone to my daughter last night and said "how you doing kiddo." He is still "with us".

 

Heal yourself. Realize you can still look at a crooked picture on the wall, and think it better to straighten it, and after straighening it, feel good about the operation. I know you can do this, because you can form English sentences that have within them the meaning you wished to impart in them. If you could not do this, select a proper word, a correct word, spelled correctly, of the right part of speech and such, you would remain mute. (or illiterate). This ability to speak has also been evolutionarily emergent and would thusly also scientifically be build upon reward chemicals for when we said it right, and punishment chemicals for when we said it wrong. (If the Matt/TAR theories in this direction are reasonable.) In which case, you should not consider that you have lost the whole "being a human being" thing. In fact, I would say that your ability to use words, to match, to make analogies and such is several of my 100 things that make you feel good. In that alone, you can not say that your ability to experience any pleasure is gone. It simply is not gone. You can still find the right word. You still no the difference between the right word and the wrong word. You still therefore know the difference between right and wrong, with no outside help required.

 

Perhaps you should just build up from the little pleasures, forget the bliss, orgasmic, incredible, penultimate joy stuff, and just enjoy a sandwich and a glass of milk, and watch the cloulds go by for a few minutes.

 

Like Ophiolite said.

 

Regards, TAR

Matt,

 

Just noticed on the re-read of my above post, that I made a few mistakes. Like writing no when I meant know. Did you notice the errors on the way through?

in to instead of into

elses instead of else and who knows how many other grammar and constuction flaws

 

It is better to get it right than to get it wrong. Everybody knows this, and feels this. Even a certain person I know who says he gets no "ok" signal when something is good.

 

Thank you for your support and I am already living my life in the hopes of possible recovery. But now, I also wish to talk about hedonism itself and what it has to say and I also want your personal opinions on what I'm going to say below about hedonism. It first explains my dead and wasted dream of being a composer. Then it goes on to talk about hedonism:

 

My dream in life was to also be a composer, but through my pure pleasure alone since suffering and despair is pointless to me and has no greater benefit. Composing music through my suffering, despair, and anhedonia is NOT what I wanted to do at all and would only make me feel worse no matter what since music is all about enjoyment in a world that absolutely calls for our experience of love, pleasure, joy, and motivation (which would be the emotional world of composing). It's not about creating dark, tragic, and gothic music through bad emotions since these exact same types of music can be composed just as great and even greater through pure pleasure alone (again, the pleasure in dark, gothic, and tragic things).

So if I were to pursue my dream of being a composer right now, this would make me feel worse knowing that I have no pleasure to experience or to channel and tap into in creating any of my compositions. Pursuing my dreams also isn't going to help me recover my ability to experience pleasure either since my anhedonia has lasted for many many months and still hasn't gotten any better despite me engaging in all activities that I used to enjoy doing. So I do not think that my anhedonia will ever get any better. So this is the reason why I am going to let me, my dreams, and my life waste away because that makes me feel less depressed and less enraged. Me choosing to do great things in my life such as composing anyway makes me feel worse since I absolutely expect myself to feel pleasure from these greatest moments of my life, but am not allowed to experience pleasure from any of these things at all. Therefore, even if I were the greatest composer in the world right now with no ability to experience pleasure, this would actually be the worst moment of my life since I am unable to experience any pleasure from being the greatest composer in the world and am unable to experience my full pleasure that I once had before towards these greatest compositions in the world if I were somehow the greatest composer in the world.

I am a hedonist because my personal profound and meaningful experience of pleasure says so. Hedonism states that pleasure is the only good thing in life, that pain, suffering, despair, and emotions such as rage and sadness are the only bad things in life, while everything else in life is neutral (neither good or bad). Therefore, pleasure is the only thing that would make me a good and great composer since all other aspects of being a composer are neutral based on my hedonistic belief. You can even obtain pleasure from harming others and you would still be a good person since even your own attitude and actions are neutral and that it's only your own pleasure that is good and is the only thing that makes you a good person. The pleasure and suffering of others does not matter from your own perspective since you are only in your own mind and not in the minds of others and you cannot experience their pleasure, suffering, and depression. All good and bad values you have towards the pleasure, suffering, and depression of others is nothing more than a neutral thought from your own perspective. So it's only your own pleasure, suffering, and depression that matters to you while the pleasure, suffering, and depression of others only matters to them.

So me composing to bring others pleasure would not make me or my life anything good at all without my own pleasure. If, let's pretend, that I had my full pleasure in life right now and composed good and great compositions, I would send these compositions out into the world for others to listen to. However, I would also include a very important message to the world. This message would be that pleasure is the only good thing in life and is the only thing that makes you a great person and a great composer and that even the greatest composers in history who had less pleasure in life would not be as great as those people who created compositions through pure pleasure alone. Therefore, pleasure is truly your own greatness in life and makes you the truly great composer. So how good you are (your level of greatness) and how good your life is solely depends on the level of pleasure you have in your own life.

[dimreepr]

Matt, the cup you choose to fill has no bottom.

 

To try and fill your cup with any emotion is to empty an ocean into the void.

 

To be happy first you need to be content.

Edited November 22, 2014 by dimreepr

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

"Me choosing to do great things in my life such as composing anyway makes me feel worse since I absolutely expect myself to feel pleasure from these greatest moments of my life, but am not allowed to experience pleasure from any of these things at all."

 

Who or what is disallowing the pleasure? In your estimation?

 

To me it seems like you are in charge and setting your own boundries and conditions. Under those circumstances you are in control of the premises and conclusions of your logic. For me, who does not agree with your hedonistic montra, your logic is faulty because the premises have not been soundly set.

 

You can't be talked to under these conditions, because when doubt is placed on you premises you just ignore the reprecussions that such doubt places on the soundness of your conclusions.

 

Your last post repeats many phrases, and sets many conditions, and makes many conclusions that are simply not agreed upon.

 

They are just your conditions, not set by reality. I choose not to play your game, by your rules. I go by mine.

 

Science goes by what is evident.

 

You want to talk your opinion, my opinion or figure out what is really going on, and do something about it?

 

Regards, TAR

MattMVS7,

 

What about us other "not great composers"? Where do we fall in your logic?

 

I can't draw, but would like to be able to paint beautiful pictures...yet when we play Pictionary we often get into histerics over the fact that everything I draw looks like a spider.

 

How can I find joy in NOT being a great cartoonist?

 

You figure it out.

 

Regards, TAR

Matt,

 

I don't read music, but I play the violin. I can play, on the violin, any tune I can hum, or whistle or sing. Can just feel the intervals I want and just put my finger down where I think I am going to find the note, and adjust until its "right". But I don't know many songs, because I have to basically play songs I already "figured out", or just "compose" my own. When I first tried to play the violin (one found in my wife's attic and repaired by my brother-in-law, who can play very well and plays for contra dancers), I was trying for weeks to get something other than squeeks to come out of the thing. I was getting successful and making some nice notes. Then my wife, who knows about music, reads music and the like, noticed I was not using rosin and bought me a rosin bag. ROSIN, who knew you needed to put rosin on your bow to get the strings to sound. Boy was playing the violin easy once you rosened up the bow.

 

Regards, TAR

[MattMVS7]

MattMVS7,

 

"Me choosing to do great things in my life such as composing anyway makes me feel worse since I absolutely expect myself to feel pleasure from these greatest moments of my life, but am not allowed to experience pleasure from any of these things at all."

 

Who or what is disallowing the pleasure? In your estimation?

 

To me it seems like you are in charge and setting your own boundries and conditions. Under those circumstances you are in control of the premises and conclusions of your logic. For me, who does not agree with your hedonistic montra, your logic is faulty because the premises have not been soundly set.

 

You can't be talked to under these conditions, because when doubt is placed on you premises you just ignore the reprecussions that such doubt places on the soundness of your conclusions.

 

Your last post repeats many phrases, and sets many conditions, and makes many conclusions that are simply not agreed upon.

 

They are just your conditions, not set by reality. I choose not to play your game, by your rules. I go by mine.

 

Science goes by what is evident.

 

You want to talk your opinion, my opinion or figure out what is really going on, and do something about it?

 

Regards, TAR

MattMVS7,

 

What about us other "not great composers"? Where do we fall in your logic?

 

I can't draw, but would like to be able to paint beautiful pictures...yet when we play Pictionary we often get into histerics over the fact that everything I draw looks like a spider.

 

How can I find joy in NOT being a great cartoonist?

 

You figure it out.

 

Regards, TAR

 

My anhedonia is a physiological change in the brain in which I can't experience any amount of pleasure whatsoever. There is no way that I can just snap myself out of it for brief moments and have at least some moments of pleasure. My anhedonia is chronic and there all the time 24/7 and it still hasn't gotten any better for many months now regardless of how much activities I engage in that used to bring me pleasure.

[tar]

MattMVS7,

 

Yes you have told us that a number of times. I just don't believe its a final "i am not allowed to have pleasure" thing.

 

You have a hand in allowing yourself to enjoy a thing or not. I am not suggesting "snapping out of it". I am suggesting working your way out. Starting with your own characterisation of what is enjoyable, and what you are expecting joy to feel like. Obviously you have lost the "feel" for pleasure, as you have defined it as something you can no longer experience, so anything you feel is not going to be pleasure.

 

Like dimreeper said, you have choosen a cup with no bottom to fill.

 

Pick a different cup.

 

Regards, TAR

MattMVS7,

"My anhedonia is a physiological change in the brain in which I can't experience any amount of pleasure whatsoever."

Well I thought my 100 ways to feel good, which include some things which you are still capable of doing, disproved the "any amount of pleasure whatsoever" part of that statement.

I have had my foot fall asleep, and have gone to the dentist, so I "get" what you might mean by emotional numbness. That you just don't feel the pleasure, the required chemical releases, the reward chemicals just are restrained in some manner from doing what they used to be capable of doing. But look at the situation scientifically and logically. If we developed our consciouness based on reward chemicals, then if you are still conscious, some physiological residue of pleasure is still extant in your brain. Otherwise, according to my theory and my quest for the list of the 100 things that make you feel good, you would not be able to get anything right, sense anything, match anything, internalize anything, remember anything, complete anything, set and reach any goal, because all those things are tied up with drawing a distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, desired and avoided.

Maybe just try an experiment. Pick a kid (a relative) and visit him or her and do something that makes them smile. If you succeed in making them smile, and this success does not make you smile, then I would agree that you are hopelessly broken. On the other hand if you do not succeed in making him/her smile, you just are not very much fun.

Regards, TAR

Hey,

 

Since we are talking about pleasure and the meaning of life and all and relating it to our personal take and worth and so on, I think it important to say my Dad had a set-back yesterday, a fever and lessening of consciousness that took him out of the rehab place he had just gotten to, and put him back in the emergengy room of a hospital. I sat with him for four hours and he spoke very little. With the drugs and the fever and the age and the brain surgery I do not know what he is feeling and thinking. Not to the understanding that a normal conversation might provide. But, for the topic of this thread, and the discussion we have been having here, I think my Dad is great, even in his currently diminished state. And even with the dire family situation going on in my life, I can still joke with you and relay my rosin story, and find enjoyment in life.