116 replies to this topic

[8143FF763271]

This implies that all humans are inherently selfish by nature, and that every action of every human has pure self-motivation behind it.

What of action (or inaction) intended to avoid conflict, even when making that sacrifice means that the person is unhappy? Could you argue that it pleased them to avoid confrontation/trouble/pain even though the end result was not what they wanted?

On the same note, I am having a hard time believing that the avoidance of things is pleasure-inducing. Relieving, possibly, but not pleasing. I have a myriad of emotions, and being pleased is not my only positive one.

One more thing, why would people ever be sad if we did everything for pleasure? Wouldn't we just be like, "I could be sad, but instead I will be happy because that will be more pleasurable?"

Humans aren't inherently selfish, but they feel alone. Things feel good or bad to them individually, their neurological systems are theirs alone. Take babies for example. Imagine there was no law punishing my deeds. Taking care of a baby implies a certain amount of work and sacrifice. If taking care of the baby didn't bring me any pleasure, I'd just leave it there. Why would I care? Why would I be obliged to take care of it, if doing so didn't bring me any sort of pleasant emotion? What in me would compel me to act and take care of that baby? We may be able to exert pleasure from helping and pleasing others, but if those things didn't feel good... why would we do them to begin with?

Going to your other point, I believe that things are unpleasant or pleasant. They feel good, or they feel bad. Avoiding pain is an attempt to maximize the pleasure in our lives. Just like everything else.

People don't choose their emotions. Certainly, everyone wants to be happy, but not everyone can create the circumstances that would make them happy. We spend our lives pursuing happiness, but happiness is, by nature, fleeting. We aren't happy because we can't be. It's not a choice.

Anorexia?

They get more pleasure from looking like they're 90 pounds than they get from eating. Certainly better than whatever your 'will to survive' argument says of anorexia.

[Sweeney]

Can you explain why I'm still checking this thread?

[Josh]

Can you explain why I'm still checking this thread?

I know

[NapisaurusRex]

They get more pleasure from looking like they're 90 pounds than they get from eating. Certainly better than whatever your 'will to survive' argument says of anorexia.

And they don't get pleasure from eating, but they eventually eat. Natural survival instinct.

[StrikeFreedom]

We do everything because of our history of reward and punishment. Skinnerism is almost completely sufficient.

[8143FF763271]

And they don't get pleasure from eating, but they eventually eat. Natural survival instinct.

LMAO!! You have to be kidding me. Do you honestly think something clicks in anorexics and says "I MUST EAT TO LIVE!"? No, they just get really hungry. So hungry eating eventually becomes more desirable than than weighting 90 pounds. I mean... is this really THAT hard for you to grasp? What the fuck do you think a "NATURAL SURVIVAL INSTINCT" is? How do you think we'd interpret that in our minds? Do we get possessed by an ancient spirit that makes us unconsciously grab the nearest meal?

I mean I honestly don't even know why people are having such a hard time seeing that pleasure precedes survival. You people are on some seriously flawed reasoning process.

We aren't BORN with the knowledge that not eating or anything will kill us. We do not KNOW that. How can you say that we do these things because of an "INSTINCT TO SURVIVAL" when we don't even know that they'd contribute to survival? The basic knowledge that we operate on is that not eating makes us hungry and that eating eliminates hunger.

Edited by kami12, 20 August 2012 - 12:55 AM.

[Sweeney]

Are you saying that people don't have the capacity to learn things that affect their decision making process?

[Turnip]

Here's a question for you: is there any meaning to this thread?

[8143FF763271]

Are you saying that people don't have the capacity to learn things that affect their decision making process?

They have the capacity to learn... they just don't HAVE to learn. It's not given that we WILL learn something. We can spend our lives not knowing that smoking will give us cancer. Likewise, we can spend our lives not knowing not eating will make us die- we will still eat because we get hungry.

[luvsmyncis]

Here's a question for you: is there any meaning to this thread?

Bwahahahahaha I fuckin' love it. This gif is the meaning of life.

[Sweeney]

They have the capacity to learn... they just don't HAVE to learn. It's not given that we WILL learn something. We can spend our lives not knowing that smoking will give us cancer. Likewise, we can spend our lives not knowing not eating will make us die- we will still eat because we get hungry.

But most people don't go through their lives without learning that, so it's fundamentally irrelevant.

[8143FF763271]

But most people don't go through their lives without learning that, so it's fundamentally irrelevant.

It isn't fundamentally irrelevant because it shows that pleasure precedes survival which is what I am saying? We don't need to know whether something or not will help us survive. We will follow it so long as it provides us pleasure. We aren't made with a "will to survive", we're made with a will to pleasure. We don't "fundamentally" eat because it helps us survive, we eat because it kills hunger. The realization that not eating will result in death is something that comes later. SMH. I don't understand if you people can't read or if I'm not expressing myself right but the fact that this point seems to elude everyone is pretty fucking mind boggling.

Edited by kami12, 20 August 2012 - 12:32 PM.

[Sweeney]

And why do these things bring us pleasure?

[grapes]

^Serotonin?

[8143FF763271]

And why do these things bring us pleasure?

We're genetically set up so these things bring us pleasure. Again, that is a byproduct of natural selection but it's never present in US as a will to survive. It doesn't care about survival nor is it "intended" towards survival.

A lot of people here seem to have the misconception that beings evolve "to" survive. No, beings mutate and they evolve IF they survive. Biological imperatives rarely manifest themselves as survival for the sake of survival. Aggressive animals aren't aggressive because they want to live, they are aggressive because they are (they produce more testosterone or whatever) and that greatly enhances their chance of surviving, but chimpanzees don't step out into the wild thinking "I AM MORE LIKELY TO SURVIVE AND HAVE MORE BABIES IF I AM AGGRESSIVE". They just happen to be violent. We don't eat (necessarily) thinking it will help us survive, we just happen to like food. Survival is a collateral.

[Sweeney]

We're genetically set up so these things bring us pleasure. Again, that is a byproduct of natural selection but it's never present in US as a will to survive. It doesn't care about survival nor is it "intended" towards survival.

A lot of people here seem to have the misconception that beings evolve "to" survive. No, beings mutate and they evolve IF they survive. Biological imperatives rarely manifest themselves as survival for the sake of survival. Aggressive animals aren't aggressive because they want to live, they are aggressive because they are (they produce more testosterone or whatever) and that greatly enhances their chance of surviving, but chimpanzees don't step out into the wild thinking "I AM MORE LIKELY TO SURVIVE AND HAVE MORE BABIES IF I AM AGGRESSIVE". They just happen to be violent. We don't eat (necessarily) thinking it will help us survive, we just happen to like food. Survival is a collateral.

It doesn't matter about intent or not. The genetic predisposition to find pleasure in things that are beneficial to survival persists in the population because it promotes survival.
It is a survival instinct.

[grapes]

^yup (out of +rep) or wouldn't have posted this.

Edited by grapes, 20 August 2012 - 01:06 PM.

[8143FF763271]

It doesn't matter about intent or not. The genetic predisposition to find pleasure in things that are beneficial to survival persists in the population because it promotes survival.
It is a survival instinct.

Of course it is present in the population because it promotes survival. That's superfluous. Obviously things that promote survival will remain in the population, they help people survive. Things that don't promote survival won't remain in the population, as these make beings die off. That doesn't make anything a will to survive. It just makes survival a frequent result of certain predispositions. A result is NOT an end. The basic end of humans eating is tending to pleasure. A collateral result is survival. Thus, pleasure precedes survival.

"Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength--life itself is WILL TO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!--one of which is the instinct of self- preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must be essentially economy of principles."
---- Nietzsche.

SRSLY y'all need to take a

If so many people don't 'understand' what you are attempting to say, then maybe the fault doesn't lay with their perception.

Maybe I am operating at a level of critical thought way above most of you, though I do fault myself in not being able to make you understand such basic principles. I feel like only a few of you are capable of following what I am saying.

[Sweeney]

Of course it is present in the population because it promotes survival. That's superfluous. Obviously things that promote survival will remain in the population, they help people survive. Things that don't promote survival won't remain in the population, as these make beings die off. That doesn't make anything a will to survive. It just makes survival a frequent result of certain predispositions. A result is NOT an end. The basic end of humans eating is tending to pleasure. A collateral result is survival. Thus, pleasure precedes survival.

I enjoy it when you drop in large words that don't quite fit the context.

A survival instinct is not the same thing as a will to survive. I think the problem here is more accurately summed up by Bertrand Russel:
"...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Animals eat because they derive pleasure from it, and suffer from not doing it. This results in prolonged survival, on average. It is a survival instinct.

[8143FF763271]

I enjoy it when you drop in large words that don't quite fit the context.

A survival instinct is not the same thing as a will to survive. I think the problem here is more accurately summed up by Bertrand Russel:
"...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Animals eat because they derive pleasure from it, and suffer from not doing it. This results in prolonged survival, on average. It is a survival instinct.

Again, you are putting forward concepts that don't belong in the conversation. I am arguing one thing and it is that pleasure precedes survival. There is a will to pleasure, but not a will to survival. You can call the will to pleasure a survival instinct (an instinct that helps us survive) and that would be accurate (with the definition I posted), however, it wouldn't refute anything I am saying. You'd be doing what you did earlier in this same argument- putting words in my mouth.

At least someone got to see the point, though, despite of his inability to remain within the context of what is actually being argued.

P.S. Note that never in this conversation have I used the concept of "survival instinct".

Survival. Survival>pleasure.

This, by the way, was the argument.

Edited by kami12, 20 August 2012 - 01:22 PM.

[Sweeney]

How can you say that we do these things because of an "INSTINCT TO SURVIVAL" when we don't even know that they'd contribute to survival?

Here you are using the concept of survival instinct in response to Napiform's use of the same, in the post to which I replied.

Again, you are putting forward concepts that don't belong in the conversation. I am arguing one thing and it is that pleasure precedes survival. There is a will to pleasure, but not a will to survival. You can call the will to pleasure a survival instinct (an instinct that helps us survive) and that would be accurate (with the definition I posted), however, it wouldn't refute anything I am saying. You'd be doing what you did earlier in this same argument- putting words in my mouth.

When someone is dying, and the process of recovery is horrifically painful, such as in the examples I gave much earlier in the thread, the "will to survive" is clearly taking precedence over the "will to pleasure".

[Nymh]

Maybe I am operating at a level of critical thought way above most of you, though I do fault myself in not being able to make you understand such basic principles. I feel like only a few of you are capable of following what I am saying.

I'm just gonna... yeah. No.

Can you do anything to support your argument other than stick the "because it brings you pleasure" addendum onto everything?

[8143FF763271]

Here you are using the concept of survival instinct in response to Napiform's use of the same, in the post to which I replied.



When someone is dying, and the process of recovery is horrifically painful, such as in the examples I gave much earlier in the thread, the "will to survive" is clearly taking precedence over the "will to pleasure".

Instinct TO survival (instinct intended TO survival) isn't the same as a survival instinct. To is a keyword, which is indicative of purpose.

Why would someone want to survive if it didn't bring them pleasure? If they didn't see themselves ever enjoying life again, why would someone want to survive? What is there in survival that is worth pursuing for its own sake? Life doesn't have an intrinsic value because it's life or because it's "surviving", and that's where I wanted the argument to be geared. Do you think you have some "duty" to survive? Why? Did God put you on earth to survive?

I'm just gonna... yeah. No.

Can you do anything to support your argument other than stick the "because it brings you pleasure" addendum onto everything?

That's my argument exactly, though. The fact that you think it's silly means either of two things:

A) You're not seeing all the implications of it.

B) You are seeing all the implications of it and you have accepted that there's nothing more to life beyond what feels good and what feels bad. You have accepted existential nihilism and take it for granted and, thus, find it silly that I'd even discuss this since it's OBVIOUS people will only do things when they feel good.

I doubt the case is B.

[Sweeney]

Instinct TO survival (instinct intended TO survival) isn't the same as a survival instinct. To is a keyword, which is indicative of purpose.

Then you were purposefully replying to Napiform in a way that didn't answer her point, and was deliberately deceptive. Shocker.

Why would someone want to survive if it didn't bring them pleasure? If they didn't see themselves ever enjoying life again, why would someone want to survive? What is there in survival that is worth pursuing for its own sake? Life doesn't have an intrinsic value because it's life or because it's "surviving", and that's where I wanted the argument to be geared. Do you think you have some "duty" to survive? Why? Did God put you on earth to survive?

Perhaps they want to survive because they associate survival with pleasure, but that's tangential. Their will is to survive, not to have pleasure. It is a direct contradiction of the "pleasure before survival" point that you made previously.

[8143FF763271]

Then you were purposefully replying to Napiform in a way that didn't answer her point, and was deliberately deceptive. Shocker.



Perhaps they want to survive because they associate survival with pleasure, but that's tangential. Their will is to survive, not to have pleasure. It is a direct contradiction of the "pleasure before survival" point that you made previously.

Not at all. If you read our conversation, you'd realize that napiform was arguing towards survival as an end, which is the basic notion that I am refuting. I am saying pleasure is the only end. Survival is another means to it.

It isn't a direct contradiction at all. They want to survive, but it is to survive BECAUSE it brings them pleasure. Pleasure itself is the only thing with intrinsic value. Survival isn't. People would not seek life if they did not enjoy it.

Edited by kami12, 20 August 2012 - 01:42 PM.