Hedonism or This and that: Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting your Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences

Satyr wrote:

The typical moron understands concepts as absolutes.

Justify that.

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So the need of ordering, is projected as pain/pleasure with no gradations of stress where the organism is resisting its own dissimulation with constant effort.

Didn't say that anywhere.

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If the effort is met with sufficient energies then none of ti registers, consciously...and the moron calls this absolute bliss.

Said nothing about "absolute bliss" or anything even related.

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It's numbness is mistaken for strength, when strength is understood as an ability to tolerate...a constitution where energies suffice to make the stress manageable, minimal, and so easily ignored.

Justify your puke.



What's the point of responding to you? You'd rather talk to an imaginary figure wandering your mind. Your own mind. Not mine.

The common moron understands the world as either/or....pain/pleasure become projections of its absolute absence or absolute presence.
It's a Judeo-Christian practice.

Either perfect or just a man, the condescending equalization leveling man down to parity.
If he is not God, he is "just" a man...as in "simply" a man....as in "only" a man...related to what he could have been, or, in relation to the nihilist's absolute ideal, as what he should have been.
A sense of disappointment, where the ideal is presented as the goal.
One is always disappointed with the outcome and relief can be found in mind-numbing hedonism.

Either certain or false...no degrees of possibility, probability.
Either absolute truth or absolute lie, no hierarchy of perspectives.
Any idea can be answered with "prove it".

The average moron thinks mind-games and word-games will work on Satyr, the old goat.
As if it does not reveal itself with every fucking word it speaks...and so it speaks sporadically, laconically, like a coward who is afraid of being seen.
And when seen it tries to distance itself from its image.

The strategy of hiding goes like this...
Do not expose much, but insinuate enough to appear as something you want to appear as.
If seen, then deny, or use uncertainty, skepticism, to reject, without actually responding.
So to any view "justify this" becomes a tool of negation, as nothing can be proven absolutely and so if there remains a doubt, therein lies the escape route.

If the moron did not intend it, it isn't possible.
So it must say what it is, as if self-knowledge is already a given.

If a dog does not admit that it licks its anus to clean itself, then it isn't so.
Where did the dog say that it does so?
Nowhere...ergo it does not hold.

The manimal must lend credence to its own nature with words.
If it does not consent, offer agreement, does not say so, then it can retain plausible deniabilty.

Tell us a story about that time you got drunk, man-child.
Make yourself appear interesting.

I wrote a post that's well over 1000 words. Here's a challenge for you. Can you justify any one single thing you've attributed to me, in this entire thread, in something that I've said, anywhere in the entire thread?

Ha!!
Wasn't talking about you...I was using you.

"Just" a few thoughts.
Was I putting words in your mouth?
Where?
Justify this.

Satyr wrote:

Mo wrote:

I wrote a post that's well over 1000 words. Here's a challenge for you. Can you justify any one single thing you've attributed to me, in this entire thread, in something that I've said, anywhere in the entire thread?

Ha!!
Wasn't talking about you...I was using you.

That's what I thought. So, nothing you've said anywhere has any bearing on anything I've said. None of it is an attribution or accusation. You just walk into the thread, and spout off about the phantoms wandering your mind.

Try to keep your puke down.

Justify your accusation, hypocrite.
Where did I put words in your mouth or where was I addressing you?
Prove it.

Are you fighting wind mills for your damsel in distress?

Did you read my post?

He personalizes everything to the point of delusion. A condition my entourage will have nothing of.

Satyr wrote:

Justify your accusation, hypocrite.
Where did I put words in your mouth or where was I addressing you?
Prove it.

You are responding in my thread, it's natural to assume you are responding to something in my thread. Or were you just wandering around, puking out of your face randomly? Who were you referring to when you said...

Satyr wrote:

You stupid idiot...

Word-games is all you are about.
It explains WHY you find companionship in Phonee.

According to your "thinking" no philosophy books should ever be written, just because....that's all you need.

That you want to get rid of the uncertainty, of the infinite regress, exposes you as a cowardly nihilist.

He wants to validate himself and his hedonistic numbness.
Romanticism is the other side...that turns the real into a negative only a "cynic" would admit to.

Maybe you should have a talk with Lyssa. She thinks you offered an "elegant criticism".

Look at the ground, and walk backwards, if you want.

There Will Be Blood wrote:

He personalizes everything to the point of delusion. A condition my entourage will have nothing of.

Prove it!
Justify this!!!

Ah, sorry...I got carried away with my adaptation to stupidity and feminine methodology.
When addressing it use its methods.
Remain ambiguous, imprecise...talk generally about nothing and everything, so as to retain plausible deniabilty.
When the possibility of error remains there you can hide.

In that case...yes, a specimen will see itself in a comment.
It will recognize itself.
So, any negative commentary on life, will be taken as a personal assault.
And any attack on the person will be responded to with an attack on the messenger, not the ideas...and since the self, in this medium, cannot be seen, and even if it could it would not matter, then any commentary the specimen feels assaulted by does not apply to it, if it does not admit to it.
It cannot be known...
If it does not say so, it isn't so.
Any judgment where it does not lend credence to verbally, with words, remains uncertain enough to dismiss.

And so words for it are used to hide, not to reveal.

I thought so...

Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo wrote:

You are responding in my thread, it's natural to assume you are responding to something in my thread. Or were you just wandering around, puking out of your face randomly? Who were you referring to when you said...

Ass-u-ming makes an ass out of you....Moooo.

Moooooo wrote:

Maybe you should have a talk with Lyssa. She thinks you offered an "elegant criticism".

You misunderstood my words.
That's not what I meant.

Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo wrote:

Look at the ground, and walk backwards, if you want.

Justify this...prove it.

One must actively search for the sensations of pain, in all forms, and their degrees. Especially, so-called psychological pain, which is perhaps easier to not notice.

Then its even more important to find its source as a desire or need, so that the fact of oneself-experiencing-pain need no longer be the focus.

To focus on it in such a way leads one to this redundant form of thinking where the desire which the pain represents is subverted into simply the desire to end the pain, which further leads one to try to end the pain as quickly as possible, with no thought on long term consequences and growth.

Practicing this is possibly even more difficult than understanding its importance.

To experience pain, all a manimal needs to do is give into gravity, and fall down. A hard fall against the ground hurts, pain. And so a manimal must walk upright, and balanced, both requiring energy, direction, and a sophisticated brain, with a blood sugar level. Even though a manimal does not experience pleasure in walking, there is an energy of maintenance at work.

The common manimal does not understand the dynamic and relationship between pain and pleasure. In fat, the manimal completely ignores pain whenever possible and most opportune. The common manimal, judaeo christian, secular humanist, only focuses on pleasure and wants to live there, calls this their "heaven".

The modern manimal wants to live in a complete state of euphoria, and anything outside of this can be considered a "pain" without gradation.

For example, the modern would contradict herself to admit that walking, while expending energy, is neither pleasurable nor painful. But succumbing to gravity is painful, and requires zero energy and effort.

The impact is painful, the fall itself can be painful if the one falling is afraid or plagued by regret, though regret is linked to fear.

As far as simple routine conscious energy expenditure as walking, as I believe Satyr explained earlier, if one walking has excess energy then the expenditure is pleasurable, if not then its painful. Of course, that explanation only refers directly to the sensation of walking itself not to the general mood of the one doing so.

An equilibrium can be approached, where the walking is virtually neither pleasurable or painful, meaning energy is being spent before it has a chance to grow in excess but not so quickly as to be lacking.

Stuart. wrote:

The impact is painful, the fall itself can be painful if the one falling is afraid or plagued by regret, though regret is linked to fear.

As far as simple routine conscious energy expenditure as walking, as I believe Satyr explained earlier, if one walking has excess energy then the expenditure is pleasurable, if not then its painful. Of course, that explanation only refers directly to the sensation of walking itself not to the general mood of the one doing so.

An equilibrium can be approached, where the walking is virtually neither pleasurable or painful, meaning energy is being spent before it has a chance to grow in excess but not so quickly as to be lacking.

Thanks for explaining.

Austerity makes accumulation a product of need.
Excess is then expended as growth, procreation, creation.

Pleasure as a sensation of feeding and of exceeding excess.
Both activities requiring effort = positive.

All actions exposing the actor to greater suffering.
All growth then requires more energies to maintain it there. It has raised the energies needed to maintain.
All assimilation requires exposure to the possibility of being assimilated.

Negative = no effort.
Pain/suffering increases when the organism is inert, to whatever degree it can be inert because most of the actions it needs to self-maintain are automated.
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Old age in comparison with youth.
Old age is characterized by a requirement in energies to correct the accumulating attrition of (inter)activity, in excess of what the organism can collect.
For the young one, running although stressful (suffering) can be invigorating, a sensation of excess discharging.
But in old age walking can be uncomfortable (suffering), stressful, with no excess energies available.

is entropy being used here metaphorically?

Since Mo has already declared victory over me, this will just be a commentary on his post, and not an interactive debate.

I hope he continues with that attitude; it saves me time.
He benefits me, for which I can only be thankful than whatever else was expected.

Mo wrote:

Quote :

Your views on race, how are you deriving value-standards, what kind of society and future you envision.

What are your guiding ideals?

How you know the “Why?” game has ended:

One way you know the game is over is when the answer to the “Why?” question is analytical. For example, pleasure is an end. It makes no sense to ask, “Why do you pursue pleasure?” ---because the concept “good” is analytically contained in the concept “pleasure”. If it wasn’t, you’d call it “pain”.

However, you think that the question makes sense only because when you ask it, you are thinking of whether some particular pleasure will cause greater pain, down the road. But, asking whether ‘pleasure is good’ is like asking whether a bachelor is an unmarried male. It’s analytical true.

And when someone objects to pleasure as an end, it is only ever because they are thinking of particular pleasures, AND they are a decadent (someone whose pleasures are for things that harm them). One objection is that someone might think a masochist enjoys pain, and dislikes pleasure. That’s only because the masochist gets a greater psychological pleasure from bodily pain.

Enough about pleasure. I give it as an example because it’s the most controversial example.

It’s also obvious when the game has not ended. If someone says, “Power is my ultimate goal” ---you can ask them what they want power for, and that question makes perfect sense, because power, like money, is merely a means.

The game terminates, for me. There are definite and foundational values that are the general ends of what I do as means. My goals aren’t justified circularly, as they would be if I said, “I want insight for pleasure, and I want pleasure for insight”. Nor do my purposes trace back infinitely, (which is really just a hidden nihilism).

His saying "the concept "good" is analytically contained in the concept "pleasure"" dovetails with his saying earlier,
"But suppose someone wants to say, "all existence is suffering"... it's extremely deprecating to life. It suggests that life is a burden to be born, since it's really suffering at bottom."

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Pleasure = Good, Suffering = Bad

Therefore I pursue Pleasure for its own sake, as my founding value.

This definition is thus not just subject-dependent, but also a subjective one,, since what is good and pleasurable for me as dictated by my physiology need not be something objectively valuable. The Xt. may consider charity or martyrdom good and pleasurable as dictated by his physiology, or some other may consider homosexuality good and pleasurable, but doesn't make either a timeless noble value in the larger life-affirmative objective perspective.


This can be a point of departure to what separates the Slavish from the Master.

There are two contexts to Pleasure; the 'hedonism' of the Strong, and that of the Weak and weary.

1. Pleasure as the feeling and effect of a great willing, consciousness of an increase in power, derivative of an action, and so the feeling of pleasure as the feeling of attained power, strength. A voluptuosness.

2. Pleasure as the motivating cause of an action for its own sake, and such idealization already a defamation of reality, in its avoidance of pain and suffering. An intoxication.

The objection to pleasure as an ends in itself need not only come from the quarter of a decadent who pursues pleasure that harms him; it can also come from that nihilist who cannot affirm pain as a stimulus, as even a necessity
to his growth-economy, or even from the very fact pleasure can lead to stagnation even if beneficial and therefore cannot be said to be innately good.

That is why Satyr said, "The world is not contained within the interpretations of a single species, spinning around a small star on the edge of one amongst billions of galaxies, you arrogant fuck.
What is good for you is not a universal truth.
It is an interpretation of a universal phenomenon, that is neither good nor bad.
Objectivity is going beyond the human, to see the essence of what this relationship of man and otherness is."  



Worth reflecting;

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"...one does not take the means as the supreme measure of value (therefore not states of consciousness, such as pleasure and pain, if becoming conscious itself is only a means..." [N., WTP, 711]

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"...strength as pleasure in the proof of strength..." [WTP, 800]

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"Pleasure appears where there is the feeling of power.
Happiness: in the triumphant consciousness of power and victory.
Progress: the strengthening of the type, the ability for great willing; everything else is misunderstanding, danger." [WTP, 1023]

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"More natural is our first society, that of the rich, the leisure class: they hunt each other, love between the sexes is a kind of sport in which marriage furnishes an obstacle and a provocation; they amuse themselves and live for pleasure; they esteem physical advantages above all, are curious and bold." [WTP, 120]

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"...that all strong feelings of pleasure (wild spirits, voluptuousness, triumph, pride, audacity, knowledge, self-assurance and happiness as such) have been branded as sinful, as a seduction, as suspicious;
...that feelings of weakness, inward acts of cowardice, lack of courage for oneself have been overlaid with sanctifying names and taught as being desirable in the highest degree..." [WTP, 296]

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"...no one had the courage to define the typical element in pleasure, every sort of pleasure ("happiness") as the feeling of power: for to take pleasure in power was considered immoral..." [WTP, 428]

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"The will to power" is so hated in democratic ages that their entire psychology seems directed toward belittling and defaming it. The type of the great ambitious man who thirsts after honor is supposed to be Napoleon! And Caesar! And Alexander! - As if these were not precisely the great despisers of honor!
And Helvtius demonstrates to us that men strive after power so as to possess the enjoyments available to the powerful: he understands this striving for power as will to enjoyment! as hedonism!" [WTP, 751]

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"The will to grow is of the essence of pleasure: that power increases, that the difference enters consciousness." [WTP, 695]

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"The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism.
For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or displeasure." [WTP, 35]

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"Spiritual weariness. The reduction of problems to questions of pleasure and displeasure." [WTP, 64]

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"This hedonistic turn, the proof from pleasure, is a symptom of decline:
it replaces the proof from strength..." [WTP, 240]

Power is not a thing or goal out there, a value out there, but value itself as a power derivative is what N. meant by the phrase will-"to"-Power. I have already presented Heidegger's clarification on this;

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""Will strives for what it wills not just as for something that it does not yet have. Will already has what it wills. For will wills its willing. Its will is what it has willed. Will wills itself. It exceeds itself. In this way will as will wills above and beyond itself, and therefore at the same time it must bring itself beneath and behind itself. This is why Nietzsche can say all amounts to the will to become  stronger, the will to grow. . . " where "stronger" indicates "more power," and that means: only power. For the essence of power is to be master over the level of power attained at a particular time. Power is power only when and only for as long as it is an increase in power and commands for itself "more power."  halt the increase of power only for a moment, merely to stand still atone level of power, is already the beginning of a decline in power.

In the expression "Will to Power" the word "power" gives the essence of the mode in which will wills itself to the extent that it is command. As command, will joins itself to itself, i.e., to what it has willed. This self-gathering is the empowering of power. Will exists for itself no more than power for itself. Will and power, therefore, are not subsequently linked by  the will to power; rather, will, as the will to will, exists as the will to power in the sense of the empowerment of power. Power, however, has its essence in the fact that it stands in relation to will as the will that is inside the will. The will to power is the essence of power. It indicates the absolute essence of will which wills itself as sheer will. Hence the will to power cannot be dropped in favor of a will to something else, e.g., the "will to nothing"; for this will too is still the will to will - that is what enables Nietzsche to say (On the Genealogy of Morals, Third Treatise, § i, from 1887): "it [the will] will will nothing rather than not will." [Heid. on N.'s WTP]

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There is no will.
Every willing is essentially, in-essence a willing-to-power. Power is not an 'apart', an 'addition-to',... like it could be will to eating, will to writing, will to pleasure...; willing is a willingpower already.
One's will-to-power is a willing of one's willing-self and not a nihilism.

"It is not the will that desires power (as an object of desire that would necessarily involve a representation of power), but power that wills becoming. ...it is exactly the decadent will, ridden by ressentiment, that desires power. The will to power is the drive to become more, a mode of being that is constantly becoming." [Peter Goodrich, Nietzsche and Legal Theory]

Mo wrote:

"How do you know what is valuable? I.e., How is value justified?

You can derive values from the way the world is, and what you are. For example, once I know what a wrist watch is, I can understand what it ought to do---and thus I can say, (if it doesn't do what it ought), that it is a bad wrist watch. ('Bad' or 'good' is an evaluation). The same applies for creatures such as us. I ought to learn, because otherwise I am not good at being what I am. I am partly a thinking creature.

Any normative evaluation (e.g., "good or bad") that is taken from descriptive facts about a creature relies on the notion that that creature has some purpose built into its physiology, or else built into other descriptive facts about the world. Yes, so? For example, the wrist-watch is a bad wrist-watch because it doesn't keep time. But if keeping time was NOT the purpose of the watch, then I couldn't say it was actually a 'bad' watch. The same applies to humans."The ancient Greeks did not have a distinction between ‘prudence’ and ‘morality’---both only meant the topic concerning “how you ought to act”. There was no division of the term ‘ought’. The distinction arose in the religious Dark Ages. It was essentially between that which is good for you in this world (prudence), versus that which is good for you in the world to come—i.e., God’s world (morality). This is a distinction without a difference."

How creationist it sounds.

The accent being on "once I know"...

The watch is designed with a purpose in mind by a higher intelligence as a means to further itself.

Is he really saying the same about man?!

To think, one is born already with a purpose is an immanence-nihilism, like transcendence-nihilism is to believe like the Xt., one is born with God's purpose, etc.

What could be said here, is one is born with a "potential", not a "purpose", and so "Knowing Thyself" comes into play like the "once I know" of the watch; and this "Knowing Thyself" is never a complete or absolute process, and so the potential in interaction with the world is always in a becoming...

Every creature has an inner "logic", an inner law, a design that is delineated and determined by that potential.

From a subject-dependent perspective, it could be said, Good is whatever accentuates that Naturalness, whatever increases the feeling of power, the logic of its innate tendencies, the feeling of pleasure signifying this naturalness, and Bad is whatever inhibits that Naturalness - denatures it from itself.

Therefore its not "good" that is contained in "pleasure" as an ends in itself,,, but "pleasure" contained in "good" towards its nature-becoming.

"Progress toward "naturalness": questions of power are at stake - "what one can do," and only after that what one ought to do.'" [WTP, 124]

The above creationist view puts the cart before the horse.

Mo wrote:

"“Just because”

Any particular thing that is valuable is valuable “just because” of this relation between what you are, and the world. That is where the foundational WHY question about value ends. Your values are the things that lead to this flourishing relation. You can delve into understanding the world and your physiology through science and other subjects… but those are WHAT or HOW questions. They do not change the fact that what’s valuable is valuable “just because” of that relation between you and the world. There is nothing from an other-world to appeal to---nor do you need it---to justify that relation between what you are and the world."

"Knowing Thyself" is a be-coming,... a continuous looking back that does not end in some "built-in purpose" - That, would be a nihilism.

This is why Satyr said, "If you do not want to explore, then go back to fucking monkeys and writing romantic poems to married women.
According to your "thinking" no philosophy books should ever be written, just because....that's all you need.
That you want to get rid of the uncertainty, of the infinite regress, exposes you as a cowardly nihilist."

Claiming "Just Because" I am built this way and therefore this is what I must value assumes an absolute immanent purpose (given your analogy with the watch above), and therefore a sheer nihilism, and the arrogance similar to a Xt. with his inflated ego, believing he is God's purpose and unsacrificiable (hence nihilistic ideals of equality, pacifism, liberalism, etc.)
The immanence-arrogance that one "knows" one's built-in purpose,,, that consciousness of who one is has been pre-determined instead of consciousness emerging as an Ordering tool in reaction to entropy, implies never having to explore back (consciousness is a looking backward), or engage in any philosophy at all, in the comfort, that the explanation "just because" suffices.

"Toward a critique oj the herd virtues.- Inertia operates. ...in the sense of truth. What is true? Where an
explanation is given which causes us the minimum of spiritual effort." [N., WTP, 279]


"Just because" can only "describe", not "explain" value-standards.

"That "heredity," as something quite unexplained, cannot be employed as an explanation but only to describe and fix a problem." [WTP, 645]

Mo wrote:

“Random-mixing”

I don’t have a problem with miscegenation at some general level, because I am a race realist and an elitist. As far as I know, you cannot be both of those things, and still have a problem with miscegenation in general. And frankly, to choose a partner who embodies what you value is not “random” mixing---it’s the opposite of random. The whole conversation of this is still in Chatbox Trivialities. Don’t ask me to play whac-a-mole. [/size]

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Satyr asked him: "Using the Socratic method, concerning race, you conclude that race-mixing is good, because in the mixing something valuable might pop up, no?
Do you stand by this position?"

Mo replied: "Yes, I have no objection to miscegenation at a general level, universally, if that's the choice that an individual makes for themselves. That's not hte same thing as "random-mixing"---because it's not at all random."

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What kind of "elistism" is that - esp. when intelligence becomes as good as any other appealing quality?

Miscegenating in the hope that those appealing qualities on mixing will yield something valuable is a random-mixing of "qualities", as the results are random and left to chance.

And, it is possible, for example to be both a race-realist and an elitist and not miscegenate, when you already come from a genetically superior ('intelligence'-wise) relatively-homogenous gene-pool, and possess the self-reverence of that lineage.

It is also possible to be a race-realist and an elitist and favour miscegenation when you esteem a certain kind of 'intelligence' as your dominant and guiding value.

From the wise words of Mo:
Why? Just because!

No more philosophy, no thought. No need to answer questions. All finished. Now let's embrace our animal instincts and feeeeeeel our way to the next end. That's what it's about, feelings.

Philosophy is finished. Mo has destroyed it. Just because.

Consciousness is ended.

Lyssa wrote:

If you accept Life is an ordering, then expending is a pain.

Logical.

.... logical?
Dear, allow me to take issue with this sentence, since we're bringing logic into the discussion, and press you a little harder on determining: how does it follow that expending is a pain, when life is an ordering?

We discussed this in another thread, and pardon me if I remember incorrectly, but you said that an excess of energies must be released or it results in suffering.
Thus, expending can be the relieving of a pain. And the relieving of a pain is a pleasure.
And so by using your own example, I must conclude that your equation above does not follow.

Lyssa's take on power as a pleasure sounds quite.... intoxicating

Lyssa wrote:

Knowing Thyself" is a be-coming,... a continuous looking back that does not end in some "built-in purpose" - That, would be a nihilism.

This is why Satyr said, "If you do not want to explore, then go back to fucking monkeys and writing romantic poems to married women.
According to your "thinking" no philosophy books should ever be written, just because....that's all you need.
That you want to get rid of the uncertainty, of the infinite regress, exposes you as a cowardly nihilist."

I said that value is grounded in a relation between what you are and the world. You think that value is grounded in your ancestry, which is just another way of labelling what you are. As I told apaosha, that is a fine answer, as far as it goes. But recognize a few things...

1. You do not honor your ancestry and traditions by thinking that whatever is valuable is valuable just because they say so. To do that is to disregard the skills and abilities (e.g., critical thinking skills) that you owe to every force that shaped you into what you are. You honor your ancestry by exercising the abilities that you owe to them.

2. Your ancestors didn't value what they valued just because their ancestors did, and onwards, backwards, to some great intellectual with a hairy back, swinging from a tree. No. They had brains, and thus they looked for actual reasons. What tradition do you come from that finds it acceptible to do whatever you do solely because that's what you've always done, rather than for the reasons why they've always done what they've always done?

3. Nothing is true just because someone says so. Scientific truths are not true just because a scientist says so. Truths about value aren't true just because god says so. And the same applies to your ancestors. When your children start asking why they need to do X, Y, Z... and after a certain age, all you can still say is, "Because I said so", or "Because we've always done it this way" ---then all of you are fucked.

4. On top of that, it sounds too much like what every religious person says about value---that value is "whatever God says". You just replace God with your parents, or their parents, or their parent's parents, as in your inifinite regress. Wake up and smell the Euthyphro dilemma. All that "X says so" implies about the justification, is that X knows what it is. It's not a justification, when you say that to me, it's only a deferal of responsibility.

5. If you were to tell me about your ancestry, I assume you would be describing some constellation of various influences that live and breathe and interact and exercise various different capabilities---not some clear, static, dead, list of things on stone tablets never needing interpretation or relation to the world. Was "your ancestors" one person of a single mind about everything?

So, no, you don't honor your ancestry by ignoring what you are---that's how you dishonor them.

In other news, I've never fucked a monkey or written a romantic poem to a married woman. Does Satyr care? No, of course not. He invents the person he's speaking to, from some other mask he forgot he wears. Why do you try to justify that puke, as in your quote?

You are up late.

Lyssa wrote:

How creationist it sounds.

The accent being on "once I know"...

The watch is designed with a purpose in mind by a higher intelligence as a means to further itself.

Is he really saying the same about man?!

No, and I didn't even say that about the watch.
It doesn't matter if the watch is designed or not. It only matters that the watch has a function based on what it actually is. It's nature, so to speak. If the watch was formed by random or naturally processes, it makes no difference. (You can use 'potential' if you want. All a 'purpose' is, is to fulfill a potentiality).
If the watch doesn't fulfil its function, then it's a shit watch. You also have a function, based on what you are. (Or, call it potentials, if you want). You become who you are by fulfilling your potentials.

Lyssa wrote:

Claiming "Just Because" I am built this way and therefore this is what I must value assumes an absolute immanent purpose

Nothing I've ever said has anything to do with absolutes. Does it?
And why do you keep saying, "just because"?

Quote :

The immanence-arrogance that one "knows" one's built-in purpose,,, that consciousness of who one is has been pre-determined instead of consciousness emerging as an Ordering tool in reaction to entropy, implies never having to explore back (consciousness is a looking backward), or engage in any philosophy at all, in the comfort, that the explanation "just because" suffices.

I said very clearly in my OP, that value is grounded in the world and your nature, and that you must explore these things. But exploring them doesn't change the fact that value is what it is just because of that relation between the world and your nature.

Quote :

Pleasure = Good, Suffering = Bad

Therefore I pursue Pleasure for its own sake, as my founding value.

I don't think pleasure is a founding value. I put it as a value among the others than I listed... excellence, beauty, insight, etc.

Quote :

This definition is thus not just subject-dependent, but also a subjective one,, since what is good and pleasurable for me as dictated by my physiology need not be something objectively valuable.

It is objectively valuable, because it is dictated by your physiology. The definition of 'objective', in any dictionary, is something that is opinion-independent. That's what your body is, also the world.

Objective does not mean 'universal', or 'context-independent', or 'absolute'. These things are often confused. I don't know why.


When I intentionally do something that gives me pain, it's not the pain itself that my actions are directed at; it's the value that can't be had without whatever is causing that pain.
Nails on a chalkboard gives people pain. Nobody would sit and listen to that for no reason (I mean, no further value). But, if you think that doing so will cultivate some value within you, or whatever, then you would. In a nutshell, pain is always a reason against, and pleasure is always a reason for, but obviously, these can be outweighed by some other value that takes prominence in the context.

The pleasure itself is good, the stagnation isn't. This is just the example of the decadent person. If you get pleasure from an action that causes you greater harm, it doesn't mean that the pleasure itself wasn't good, it just means that it was outweighed by a greater harm.

Quote :

That is why Satyr said, "The world is not contained within the interpretations of a single species, spinning around a small star on the edge of one amongst billions of galaxies, you arrogant fuck.
What is good for you is not a universal truth.
It is an interpretation of a universal phenomenon, that is neither good nor bad.
Objectivity is going beyond the human, to see the essence of what this relationship of man and otherness is."  

Really, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything I've said.
Obviously, I've said nothing about universal truths.
Obviously, I haven't confused universality with objectivity.
Obviously, I never said that what is good for me is a universal truth.[/quote]

Mo, it is for the sake of future search reference, I added to your title of this thread, [and did not erase it], as "this and that" makes the search facility difficult.

Do not have such a frail ego and take everything as an attack.

Come up with a more substantial title that makes searching and recall easier than "This and That"; else I'll be adding "Just Because" once again.

Lyssa wrote:

Mo, it is for the sake of future search reference, I added to your title of this thread, [and did not erase it], as "this and that" makes the search facility difficult.

Do not have such a frail ego and take everything as an attack.

Come up with a more substantial title that makes searching and recall easier than "This and That"; else I'll be adding "Just Because" once again.

How about, "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting your Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences".




...Is that taken, already?

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

Mo, it is for the sake of future search reference, I added to your title of this thread, [and did not erase it], as "this and that" makes the search facility difficult.

Do not have such a frail ego and take everything as an attack.

Come up with a more substantial title that makes searching and recall easier than "This and That"; else I'll be adding "Just Because" once again.

How about, "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting your Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences".




...Is that taken, already?

See why I told you to read the whole KTS corpus 3 times? - Its as if I already anticipated a substantial topic title like
"Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting your Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences".

It would be overall pleasure and overall pain, rather than the individual looks at the next moment and evaluates options based on immediate results.   Pain is unavoidable, some pain.  Pain to achieve pleasure is unavoidable.    Here, taking pain and pleasure in very, very broad senses, pain for example including discomfort, anxiety, confusion, irritation, yearning; pleasure including positive sensations however subtle.   The person who to some degree idealizes pain, or thinks that it is good in itself, may or may not be correct in their self-evaluation.   They may confuse the fact that going through processes that caused pain, brought pleasures - again, please, the full range of pleasures, not simply orgasms and great mouthfuls of food - that could not have been reached otherwise.

If I come at it from another angle....

The critic of the hedonist often sees the hedonist of having an inferior value system.  Note that this implies an egalitarian view of humanity.

That guy is a hedonist, he chooses those base things that give him gross and short term pleasures.  Such decadence and idiocy.

But that guy's specific hedonism is contingent.   It is tied to that person.  Those are HIS pleasures.  

It is not that that guy would be better off or more interesting wiht another system of thought.   That is the range of his pleasures.  They are limited.  He may or may not have a philosophy that matches this.  He may or may not call this hedonism.   But that is an aftercontruction, and one that fits the most restricted idea of a hedonist.

The critic who implies or says that hedonism is a poor cognitive system is in a sense implying that he or she would be happier, have a greater pleasure to pain ratio, if he or she was pursuing those pleasures.   I doubt it.  Nor could the hedonist take on another belief system and become more interesting to the critic.   It might evolve that way over time as a disatisfaction with what is happening - likely a recognition of the attendant not hitherto focused on pain - by it is not simply mistaken or poor or could simply be replaced with other ideas in the mind of the hedonist.

That critic actually has a different set of pleasures and pains, perhaps a broader one, a set that includes the blunt short terms one of the traditional hedonist, but also has a range of subtler more complex ones.   It may not be broader it may simply be different.   Some people cannot enjoy food and sex and so on, but can read and enjoy incredibly boring treatises.  Their range is no greater, it is a different range.

Do the people here actually think they would have more pleasure if they pursued the life of the traditional hedonist?  Could you really say 'I would be happier living like that, but I value things that lead me to lead a different life.' ?  I am guessing that most would be able to immediately realize they would not be happier.  You can replace 'happier' with some other word or bracketing [net positive sensations/experience].


I dislike the word pleasure in this context, not necessarily because it is wrong, but given what we tend to associate with the word.   Likewise pain, hence my urge to broaden the scope of both terms.

And just to stress the point we are talking about net gains, not thinking of hedonism as a simple heuristic - where is the pain and pleasure potential in the next most and how can I have the best next moment.

Animals are not hedonists, in general, though they can be.   And achieve their range of pleasures often via quite painful routes.

It's not simply that the traditional hedonists are actually increasing their pain, through addictions, impaired social connections, malnutrition, chronic disrupted sleep and so on depending on the variations of hedonism.   All the traditional forms are very habitual and habits of any kind take a serious toll on the body.

I would assume Mo is working with something much wider ranging than those crude forms of pleasure.

I think it would be strange for someone to think, I would actually be happier if I went for what pleased me, but I don't do that.   I think they are missing the, however subtle, pleasure they get from what they do do and how they value that pleasure over others, a pleasure that traditional hedonists likely cannot enjoy, would not enjoy.   And, of course, the traditional hedonists walk on tiptoes, mouths up and sucking at often missing air, through a lake of pain to get their fixes.

Did a little more mulling:

Those who consider pain a good, may have actually arrived at this as an organism that experience greater postive feelings when its heuristics include 1) not denying or cutting off awareness of pain/negative sensation and 2) activities that lead to going through pain, but also allow for achievements of positive sensations worth the former. IOW a kind of conditioning creates the conscious valuing of pain in itself - this can take all types of forms.

So some who value pain are giving a positive value to something, when in fact it is a conditioning effect where the organism notices what happens, in themselves, and others, when pain is foolishly avoided - implicit in the idea of foolishly avoided is that there are times when it is not foolish to avoid pain. So a kind of synecdoche takes place. A confusion, but not necessarily a damaging one, given what it leads to.

But some others who value pain can be using pain like a drug. Many people who identify as stoics do this. Or have other similar patterns where enduring, grinning and bearing it, stiff upper lip, ideas of maniless and a host of other mental complexes can lead to one using pain to cut off from parts of oneself. You can actually cause a simplification of limbic system, which contrary to many people's beliefs will damage cognitive functions - not to the point of needing personal assistants, but the full range of capabilities deteriorate. (in worse cases, the person can damage themselves in readily acknowledged ways that doctors will pick up)

Both groups will say the same things, often, about pain and pleasure and hedonism and while there is a conflation in the first it is not as damaging to the person or those around him as the second pattern.