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| Kickstart |
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Kickstart
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Joined: 04 Feb 2002
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 Posted: 22:06 - 10 Sep 2008  Post subject: |
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| Hetzer wrote: | In all the examples above, ask yourselves how the person might feel if he didn't commit the acts. Sense of personal failure? Despair? What's the balance between doing something and not doing it in terms of emotional response? How about the path of least resistance vs possible reward. Best reward for doing it or for not doing it? |
Quite. Not pleasure, not any thought.
| Hetzer wrote: | In a worst-case scenario, where the best possible choice is still shit, the end result will be a rationalisation "Well, it could have been worse." Solace, consolation, relief, best of a bad job. Some sense of satisfaction at having handled an impossible situation as well as it could have been handled. |
Not for an essentially suicidal action where there will be none of those feelings as the person will be dead. An animal reaction with no rational thinking. Could just be a panicing stampede reaction based on fear with no mental thought at all (likely just be a way to make the weaker and thus useless members of the herd more obvious and so likely to be the ones caught by predators).
| Hetzer wrote: | But it still comes down to the same fundamental thing, a person will seek the best possible outcome, and if that is achieved it will give some measure of positive feeling, satisfaction, relief. And all of those words are ways of describing pleasure, of quantifying it. |
I agree with that on many motivations. Pleasure / pain are just opposites, so less pain is just moving towards pleasure.
What I do not believe, and see nothing to support, is that all motivations derive from pleasure or reduced pain. 99% is not a problem to beleive.
| Fawbish wrote: | To be honest, what the fuck stops pleasure being the root cause AND the by-product? |
Nothing. You can do something purely for pleasure, and have pleasure in another way as a by-product. For example eating for the "pleasure" of not feeling hungry and also getting the side effect of the "pleasure" of the taste.
| Hetzer wrote: | Evolution has made pleasure the motivation to survive because it is the most effective method. Think about it. The best possible reward for doing something that gives the best possible chance of survival is pleasure.
As sapient beings we have subverted it to our own ends. The subversion of it has given it an abstract nature in many cases but it's still the same animal. |
Would agree. It is a byproduct that encourages behavior useful for the survival of the species.
Keith
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| Hetzer |
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Hetzer
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| Posted: 23:50 - 10 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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| Kickstart wrote: |
Would agree. It is a byproduct that encourages behavior useful for the survival of the species.
Keith |
Then all you're arguing about is which came first, the chicken or the egg.
In all likelihood evolution discovered that a pleasurable outcome happened to afford the greatest chance of survival, so the interoperability became reinforced over millenia to the point that pleasure became the motivation, because it worked so well.
I'm at a loss to understand how you can believe it accounts for 99% of all acts but exclude 1%. How would the survival mechanism evolve such that 99% of all acts are rooted in pleasure, but 1% aren't? Did nature find something better for 1% of acts? How would it not be better for the other 99% then?
Ah, but we're talking about the subverted ones. But subverted from what? Yes, the survival mechanism. Listening to music has no survival benefit (well, it calms, good for the heart etc), but it comes from the original instinctive mechanism, which is based upon seeking advantage (which gives pleasure) as a motivation. All we have done is put that mechanism to other uses, many of which have no relation to survival.
What it boils down to is that experiencing pleasure as a byproduct is no accident. The two are interlinked, survival and pleasure (the result of successfully achieving an advantage).
Your examples of suicidal acts, what then motivates them if not pleasure (in whatever convoluted/abstract form)? Answer me that.
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Hetzer
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| Posted: 23:59 - 10 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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Dying for ones comrades in battle. Under extreme stress the mind reverts back to instinctive response, where survival of the pack surpasses survival of oneself as the advantage sought.
Does that cover your 1%?
I'll have KP, thanks. 
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Kickstart
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| Posted: 09:28 - 12 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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| Hetzer wrote: | In all likelihood evolution discovered that a pleasurable outcome happened to afford the greatest chance of survival, so the interoperability became reinforced over millenia to the point that pleasure became the motivation, because it worked so well. |
I agree with that. The other end of the scale from pain being there to prevent some actions (not that pain necessarily stops those actions).
| Hetzer wrote: | I'm at a loss to understand how you can believe it accounts for 99% of all acts but exclude 1%. How would the survival mechanism evolve such that 99% of all acts are rooted in pleasure, but 1% aren't? Did nature find something better for 1% of acts? How would it not be better for the other 99% then? |
I see no reason for it to be 100%. Looking at it a slightly different way, there are those items that give pleasure with no benefit to the survival of the species or the passing on of genes. For example someone mentioned heroin use earlier.
Or for a totally unrelated situation, natural tendencies for people to hide under a tree for shelt in a lightening storm.
| Hetzer wrote: | What it boils down to is that experiencing pleasure as a byproduct is no accident. The two are interlinked, survival and pleasure (the result of successfully achieving an advantage). |
Agreed, but being interlinked does not mean that they are exclusively linked. Nor does it mean that all people actions are motivated by the survival of themselves / the species, not does it mean that they are always motivated by pleasure.
| Hetzer wrote: | Your examples of suicidal acts, what then motivates them if not pleasure (in whatever convoluted/abstract form)? Answer me that. |
Good question. Possibly your suggestion below. Possibly just a total lack of any motivation. Possibly training leading to instictive and unthinking behavior.
| Hetzer wrote: | Dying for ones comrades in battle. Under extreme stress the mind reverts back to instinctive response, where survival of the pack surpasses survival of oneself as the advantage sought.
Does that cover your 1%? |
Certainly one example of it, and one example where pleasure is not the motivation. The motivation is possibly just instinctive animal behavior.
All the best
Keith
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Hetzer
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| Posted: 10:08 - 12 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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Hetzer wrote:
In all likelihood evolution discovered that a pleasurable outcome happened to afford the greatest chance of survival, so the interoperability became reinforced over millenia to the point that pleasure became the motivation, because it worked so well.
| Kickstart wrote: | I agree with that. The other end of the scale from pain being there to prevent some actions (not that pain necessarily stops those actions). |
If you agree that instinctive behaviour is rooted in pleasure, or the avoidance of pain, which is ultimately still the seeking of pleasure, then...
Hetzer wrote:
Dying for ones comrades in battle. Under extreme stress the mind reverts back to instinctive response, where survival of the pack surpasses survival of oneself as the advantage sought.
Does that cover your 1%?
| Kickstart wrote: | Certainly one example of it, and one example where pleasure is not the motivation. The motivation is possibly just instinctive animal behavior. |
...instinctive animal behaviour = seeking pleasure (survival mechanism).
Animals and humans share the same instinctive component, but humans have gone beyond instinct and use the survival mechanism for non-survival purposes. But that doesn't change it's fundamental functioning, it only subverts it. Where the difficulty lays in clearly seeing a motivation is where an act falls upon the boundary between instinctive behaviour and considered behaviour. And I'd say more so where an act is coerced.
But 99%, so even by your reckoning the original post in this thread presents a question that deserves scrutiny. The massively predominant purpose of life is to experience pleasure, so how can any govt function in the best interests of the public if it does not recognize that fact and govern accordingly? I say it can't, and clearly ours isn't.
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Kickstart
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Kickstart
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Hetzer
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| Posted: 13:37 - 12 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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| Kickstart wrote: | Hi
Basically agree. Think the current lot have tried to control everything (which is finacially wasteful as well as pointless, and just causes stress), while ignoring one thing that could have done with some level of, if not control, then restraint (ie, the housing market where low interest rates have just triggered insane house prices).
All the best
Keith |
Population control would answer many problems, but as with anything else it should not be dictated. Make a strong case to the public, hold a referendum, and if successful institute a rule of a max of two children per couple. That would create a fall in population, with all the obvious benefits (housing, space, food etc).
I'm convinced that over-population triggers some kind of atavistic instinct towards vilolence and destruction, and that's a whole bunch of pleasure removed from life right there.
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Kickstart
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Fawbish
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| Posted: 13:46 - 12 Sep 2008 Post subject: |
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You would have to go deeper than that also, I think.
Look at China, waaaay over populated, so introduced the one child policy. Someone failed to realise this wouldnt sit perfectly well with chinas natural preference to boys (stronger, can earn more in their culture etc) they simply left baby girls by the side of the road and drove off.
Not that I think that would happen here, but cultural views and such would have to be taken into account. Unfortunately (for the system of population control youre suggesting) our multi-cultural society would require such a diverse set of rules, and henceforth, in-fighting, disagreements etc, I just cannot see how it would be done without changing other rules, and then other rules, and so on and so forth.
Its a brilliant idea in principal, but cant see it working properly, even with our "advanced" first world society (  ha! )
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 15 years, 252 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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