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I dig the existentialism in your last paragraph, but I'm not sure that existence has to necessarily be divided into happiness and sadness, for example. Without

by mlinsey 18y ago

I dig the existentialism in your last paragraph, but I'm not sure that existence has to necessarily be divided into happiness and sadness, for example. Without pain, we probably wouldn't feel the contentment or satisfaction that comes from a long struggle (for example, the entrepreneurs here probably would agree that the end result of a successful company, whether you define that as an IPO, acquisition, being profitable, whatever, is a lot sweeter because of the struggles and the pain that went into getting there). But I don't think it follows that all types of happiness and pleasure would cease to be. Some things might be inherently pleasurable, or rather are pleasurable just because of the qualia (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/) of such experiences, and not because of a reference to a prior pain. Orgasms. The taste of a delicious meal. Etc, etc. Lastly, the absence of pain and death wouldn't necessarily mean that all our goals would be attained - there could still be room for struggle and therefore satisfaction. For example, I don't doubt that if someone with a lot of intellectual curiosity like Aristotle or Isaac Newton or Einstein were immortal and still alive today, they would still be able to find plenty of interesting challenges and probably wouldn't be bored of life yet. For the curious among us, as long as there is the unknown there will always be challenge and there will always be something interesting to do...and in the end, who knows if the unknown is even really finite?

tdavis 18y ago
Very good points, thanks for the reply! Some things might be inherently pleasurable, or rather are pleasurable just because of the qualia I completely agree! However (and perhaps I misrepresented my own view here by making things too simplified and black/white for the sake of comprehension) you still have contrast. For instance, an orgasm would likely always be more pleasurable than eating a piece of toast, regardless of whether or not you could experience any sort of displeasure. My argument was more of, "If an orgasm is 10/10 on the pleasure scale and everything felt like an orgasm, it's the same as being 0/0 because there is no longer a scale." Of course the counter-argument here (not much of an argument really) is "Everything would just feel awesome!" Unfortunately, that assumption is made from within the context of a life that does have a scale, so it's meaningless. Since I can't rightly say that the unknown is finite as I have no idea, I won't argue that eventually Einstein would become so bored that he wished to die. However, I stick by my opinion that if life where eternal it would most certainly redefine the idea of life as we know it and would likely ultimately dilute the experience. To visit the orgasm analogy again, I think life is sort of like one -- a very brief period of heightened pleasure, awareness, etc. If you remove the brevity from it, you eventually remove the pleasure. I think most people would agree that life is about the moments. The orgasms, the successful companies, the broken hearts. We define our lives based on these moments, we don't define them based on the dull in-between; eating breakfast, taking out the garbage, brushing our teeth. Many of us, I think, strive to fill our lives with as many positive moments as we can mostly because (consciously or otherwise) we realize that we have only so many moments to make before there's simply no time life to make them. If you could live forever, would you honestly work so hard all the days of your long life to make those moments? Or would the lack of urgency dilute your desire for that? Even cause you to eventually lose that desire entirely? Hell, I don't know. I'm just of the opinion that it would.
smoore4 18y ago
I know this is pretty much a totally closed post, but just to play devil's advocate here, and because truly believe in the original idea here that pain is necessary for pleasure, I'm gonna argue this point. The biggest problem with pleasure in the absence of pain is that without any pain, there would only be the most intense of pleasures, for in the absolute absence of black, you have pure white, correct? Therefore in the absolute absence of pain, u have pure pleasure. However, this leaves us with the problem that not only would there be no change in the intensity of pleasure to actually signify the difference between normal and orgasms (just for example), but absolute pleasure, being the one and only feeling, would become outrageously normal. Which leads back to life without death. The majority of people (every single person I've ever met) have serious issues with the concept of death. Maybe they're not afraid of it, but we have created entire religions simply because not one of us can imagine being non-existant, and so we created the afterlife. However, the fact that we are is defined by the fact that there are many who aren't. The problem with this idea is not a single one of us can make a conclusion based on our behavior is there was no death, for it is impossible for us (or at least for me) to comprehend a world in which there actually is no end of life. The example given about these philosophers is true, I doubt the would be bored, however the hundreds/thousands/however many years they would have been alive is no where near infinity. Without even a concept of death, life is no longer life, it simply IS. End of story. Our goals may very well be attained, but the fact that they would even be considered goals with no pleasure at attaining them and no pain at leaving them be is a bit of a mystery to me.

by mlinsey 18y ago

tdavis 18y ago

Very good points, thanks for the reply! Some things might be inherently pleasurable, or rather are pleasurable just because of the qualia I completely agree! However (and perhaps I misrepresented my own view here by making things too simplified and black/white for the sake of comprehension) you still have contrast. For instance, an orgasm would likely always be more pleasurable than eating a piece of toast, regardless of whether or not you could experience any sort of displeasure. My argument was more of, "If an orgasm is 10/10 on the pleasure scale and everything felt like an orgasm, it's the same as being 0/0 because there is no longer a scale." Of course the counter-argument here (not much of an argument really) is "Everything would just feel awesome!" Unfortunately, that assumption is made from within the context of a life that does have a scale, so it's meaningless. Since I can't rightly say that the unknown is finite as I have no idea, I won't argue that eventually Einstein would become so bored that he wished to die. However, I stick by my opinion that if life where eternal it would most certainly redefine the idea of life as we know it and would likely ultimately dilute the experience. To visit the orgasm analogy again, I think life is sort of like one -- a very brief period of heightened pleasure, awareness, etc. If you remove the brevity from it, you eventually remove the pleasure. I think most people would agree that life is about the moments. The orgasms, the successful companies, the broken hearts. We define our lives based on these moments, we don't define them based on the dull in-between; eating breakfast, taking out the garbage, brushing our teeth. Many of us, I think, strive to fill our lives with as many positive moments as we can mostly because (consciously or otherwise) we realize that we have only so many moments to make before there's simply no time life to make them. If you could live forever, would you honestly work so hard all the days of your long life to make those moments? Or would the lack of urgency dilute your desire for that? Even cause you to eventually lose that desire entirely? Hell, I don't know. I'm just of the opinion that it would.

smoore4 18y ago

I know this is pretty much a totally closed post, but just to play devil's advocate here, and because truly believe in the original idea here that pain is necessary for pleasure, I'm gonna argue this point. The biggest problem with pleasure in the absence of pain is that without any pain, there would only be the most intense of pleasures, for in the absolute absence of black, you have pure white, correct? Therefore in the absolute absence of pain, u have pure pleasure. However, this leaves us with the problem that not only would there be no change in the intensity of pleasure to actually signify the difference between normal and orgasms (just for example), but absolute pleasure, being the one and only feeling, would become outrageously normal. Which leads back to life without death. The majority of people (every single person I've ever met) have serious issues with the concept of death. Maybe they're not afraid of it, but we have created entire religions simply because not one of us can imagine being non-existant, and so we created the afterlife. However, the fact that we are is defined by the fact that there are many who aren't. The problem with this idea is not a single one of us can make a conclusion based on our behavior is there was no death, for it is impossible for us (or at least for me) to comprehend a world in which there actually is no end of life. The example given about these philosophers is true, I doubt the would be bored, however the hundreds/thousands/however many years they would have been alive is no where near infinity. Without even a concept of death, life is no longer life, it simply IS. End of story. Our goals may very well be attained, but the fact that they would even be considered goals with no pleasure at attaining them and no pain at leaving them be is a bit of a mystery to me.