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

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

If the pursuit of pleasure is the only end, then he would continue indulging indiscriminately until reality makes him aware of the cost of his indiscrimination

Yes, I think you're right... the hedonist discriminates because he knows the consequences of his actions, and he measures those in terms of pleasure/pain.

And *because* he discriminates in terms of pleasure/pain, and wills to maximize his pleasure, whether that pleasure is pursued in terms of power, beauty, excellence, f---ing cows, he continues to live in *his* 'discriminated' reality that is least painful and brings him the sensation of maximum pleasure, 5 mins. or 5 years doesn't matter.

When discrimination itself is not an objective assessment, but a 'pleasuring oneself', then his reality is skewed, cut off from the sensation of pain, need, suffering, and he indulges in the pleasurable act itself.

Therefore he is a decadent.

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Which means *because the hedonist's reduction does away with means of value-distinction, clauses in the form of objection-responses had to be introduced to correct that *within the original definition of hedonism as pleasure being the "only" intrinsic good;

One of the problems with hedonism is that other values cannot be reduced just to their pleasure-value, without violence to those values---without mistaking what they are. Also, when you try to reduce all values to ‘pleasure’, you have to expand the boundaries of the term ‘pleasure’ to encompass soo much that it renders the term 'pleasure' itself vague and meaningless. These are fair criticisms. I’d apply the same criticism to anyone who reduced all values to ‘power’, or ‘evolutionary fitness’, or any other single value. This is a problem with reductionism in general, not just hedonism.

No, the generalization doesn't apply since life IS suffering, need,, and pleasure is the satiation of this need through the positing of whatever is fulfilling - god, beauty, power, etc.

A hedonist discriminates by *already* moralizing pleasure is good in terms of pleasure/pain. Get it?
A hedonist by definition is one who posits pleasure as The Only innate good.
This makes him a decadent and his way of life an inferior one in the values of the Master who affirms reality for what it is.

And for the nth time, the Master's will-to-power is not a *FOR* pleasure, but a *from*.

Lyssa wrote:

And *because* he discriminates in terms of pleasure/pain, and wills to maximize his pleasure, whether that pleasure is pursued in terms of power, beauty, excellence, f---ing cows, he continues to live in *his* 'discriminated' reality that is least painful and brings him the sensation of maximum pleasure, 5 mins. or 5 years doesn't matter.

Yes, it clearly does...
A hedonist will act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. (They are not likely to do things that give them very brief pleasure, and a lifetime of pain. That would be maximizing pain, obviously).

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Therefore he is a decadent.

A person is decadent if they get pleasure from what harms them. A hedonist who does not is clearly not decadent.

--Imagine someone (a hedonist) who gets pleasure from reading great literature, learning an instrument, making art, having conversations with interesting people, etc. Or, maybe they get pleasure from raising a family, watching and helping their offspring grow into their selves, etc. They get pleasure out of their own accomplishments, health, exercise of their natural abilities, or when thinking about their experiences and about how they have lived.

If the only criticism you have of a hedonist is that they must like numbing themselves with drinking, drugs, avoidance, etc---(btw, things that tend to cause greater pain within a life as a whole)---then that's your own ignorance, and it's a criticism of you, not hedonism. That criticism exposes the critic's own decadence.

And this point, why don't you just try slipping into one of the criticisms of hedonism that I've already given you? --They're pretty good...

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No, the generalization doesn't apply since life IS suffering, need,, and pleasure is the satiation of this need..

One person can say that life is suffering/pain, and that pleasure is just the reduction in degree of suffering/pain. Another person can say that life is health/pleasure, and that pain is just the reduction in degree of health/pleasure. The difference is just an emotional/psychological one, not a conceptual one.

For example, I don't really care whether you think tallness is the absence of shortness, or whether you think shortness is the absence of tallness. You are free to have that conversation with whoever you like, other than me.

  
Perspectivism come to save the day...

Hyperborean Heritage wrote:

The common manimal reduces existence to the sensation.
Now everything can be hedonism, even pain, if it offers that numbness to existence.

One moment it is physical pleasure, then he sacrifices it for ideological pleasure, then he changes it to moral pleasure, then converts it to intellectual pleasure.
Anything that reduces the sense of existence, or is experienced as release of energies or a diminishing of need/suffering, is placed on the forefront...it becomes THE object/objective.

Sex, can now become only about pleasure...detached from its procreative evolutionary purpose...and raping little children loses its shameful component.
Whores can feel proud, and sluts free in their freedom from anything beyond the feeling, the sensation, the emotion.

Good, Strong, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Power, Beauty, Self, One, all words describing the same absent absolute.

Each defining the individual striving towards it as an object/objective.

Pleasure = diminishment of need, a partial and temporary alleviation of the consciousness of existence.
Need = consciousness of Flux, a temporal attrition on an ordering/becoming emergent unity.
Suffering/Pain = need left unsatiated, the increase in stress, as the unity begins losing cohesion.

Any decadent mind can make it his or her end.

Maybe we can reduce all of western Christian history to the pursuit of pleasure, and, why not, science, and the scientific method to masturbation.
Morality = pleasure.
Good feels good.
All morality is hedonistic.

Discovery feels good so why not, call it hedonism?

What the hell, what does it matter when one can use any word to define the absent absolute?

Let's call it Bob and say the end is BOB.

The hedonist-decadent puts the sensation of reduced need on a pedestal, to avoid the reality of existence.
Then he can act, with only himself as the central actor.

Everything evaporates before his sensations and personal interests.
Porn is a perfect example of making sex an end in itself....with no repercussion, no procreative outcome...no risk, no costs....fornicating for the sake of fornicating...for the orgasm.

No values, no principles, no nobility, no consideration for the next generation...nothing but a manimal pretending to be something enlightened.
Decadent minds reduce all down to their level...because there they are most comfortable.
And when they are exposed they cover it all up with words.

Zombies only know the sensation of feeding.
Vampires only of the sensation of drinking blood.

Like animals, and manimals...it does not matter what the source of their pleasure is, just as long as it satisfied a need.

Then pleasure is one END, amongst many...and long-term postponed gratification is also hedonism, and whatever reduces need has pleasure as its END.
When a decadent superficial degenerate realizes how shallow his position is, pleasure as an END, with no other considerations...then he will fumble to give it an intellectual depth, by including factors other than pleasure, such as health, symmetry, long-term considerations.

Suddenly a primal vulgarity becomes something profound, and no matter what you do you are a hedonist.

Negroes are true hedonists, because they are the most primal.

These same degenerates will then claim to be above animals.

If pleasure offers us immediate gratification, by satisfying our interests, why think long-term about the possible repercussions of protecting a retard from dying a natural death, or helping an infertile couple from acquiring the precious child that will bring them so much pleasure?

Nietzsche meant to say Will to Pleasure....
And Dawkins really wanted to say the hedonist gene.
And Jesus really said I am the son of Priapus, come here to give you pleasure, before Paul changed it around.

Suddenly hedonism has acquired the motives of Hellenic asceticism.
In a day or two, it will also claim a moral high-ground, perhaps.

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What I took from this, from what I've read -

Life is not about pleasure nor pain.
Pain can spur us to act and pleasure can soothe us and offer rest.
But it does not provide guidance on how to act and which part to rest.
That emergent will springs from the self and is beyond pleasure and pain.
To seek to align and thereby reduce it to pleasure and pain, is to limit the self.

No need/suffering, no pleasure is possible.
And no the reverse is not also true.
Why?
Because suffering requires no pleasure to be possible.
I can suffer for a lifetime, without once feeling pleasure, until death saves me from the sensation.
Pleasure, on the other hand, requires need/suffering, to negate, to be sensed as this relieving distraction from it.

Animated matter (life) only makes sense in relation to inanimate matter.
Inanimate matter requires no animated matter to exist.

Life/Death, like suffering/pleasure, are degrees of animation, once animated matter comes about in relation to inanimate matter.
Life/Death only make sense in relation to animated matter.

Suffering/Pleasure only make sense in relation to a conscious becoming, where need is how it maintains itself intact within an unconscious world.
In order for there to be a sensation of suffering/pleasure, needs must be met.
When they are not, the organism, self-organization, deteriorates towards suffering/pain before it perishes returning to a state of unconsciousness.
But, if needs are not met pleasure is not the easy, outcome, because satisfying needs, before they rise to the degree of suffering/pain, requires effort, willfulness.

But the rule is inanimate matter, which may or may not become animated.
Therefore, there is no psychological disposition here, if objectivity is the goal, and not placating cowardice.

Anfang wrote:

What I took from this, from what I've read -

Life is not about pleasure nor pain.
Pain can spur us to act and pleasure can soothe us and offer rest.
But it does not provide guidance on how to act and which part to rest.
That emergent will springs from the self and is beyond pleasure and pain.
To seek to align and thereby reduce it to pleasure and pain, is to limit the self.

Ah...so in the idea that life, being ordering/becoming, with no absolute order or being, being possible, in an environment in Flux, you do not see how the sensation of need would be the sensation of this state?

The key here is effort/stress.

Need, increasing to what man calls suffering/pain, requires no effort - the heart beat, breathing mechanism, autoimmune system, metabolic rates being effort.
Pleasure, as the decrease in the sensation of existing requires effort, to be possible...and more effort to become probable.

Now, the only way around this is for some coward hedonist to call effort/stress, a pleasure, in effect turning everything that promises, hints, alludes, acts, feels, thinks at pleasure as being pleasing.

And by the way....maximizing pleasure follows the old rule:
"Better one in the hand than two in the bush"

An ascetic prefers to go without rather than to settle for second-best.
But the coward hedonist will make this hedonism, as well, because now the sensation of self-maintenance, empowerment, growth, is the end in itself - the feeling is the end; it's not the interpretation, sensation of the end, but the end itself.

One who is interested in maximizing pleasure will not suffer self-restraint in the hopes that one day, later, at some uncertain point in time, a higher pleasure will come about.
A hedonist, if he is honest and not a coward, will admit that fucking 100 fat ugly girls, which are more reliable, or probable, sources of pleasure, is maximizing pleasure potential, rather than waiting for that super-model that may or may not show up, and that may or may not want to pleasure you.

Because it's about the pleasure itself, and not how healthy the source looks.
No desire to reproduce, sex is only about the orgasm. It would not matter what the genetic quality of the pleasure source is, since it is ONLY about the pleasure.  

Maximizing earning potentials is about settling for the lower, easier to get, paying job, rather than waiting for that high paying job to materialize.
That's pragmatic maximization, not naive romantic idealism.
Maximizing investment returns is going for the more certain, reliable, investment rather than the more risky and uncertain, yet promising higher rates of return, one.  

Certain...uncertain.  
If pleasure is your only goal then you go for the certain source of pleasure rather than daydream about some coming uncertain, greater one.

Hedonism is not Asceticism....but by the end of this thread you might be convinced that all is about hedonism, because at this point all life can be described as pain avoiding, and every idea promises some pleasure... and every action is called pleasing.

I also feel pleasure when defecating...so I defecate not necessarily to get rid of toxins from my body, but for the pleasure of it.
See, the end goal is the sensation defecating makes me feel, and not the biological purpose of defecating.
Maximizing pleasure would mean shitting my brains out.

Therefore, the universe is man's pleasure palace.
Enjoy.

Hedonists are obviously closer to animal than "human". Although sheeple like Mo will obviously claim to be human. It's too predictable, like a common animal, to go from one pleasure to the next and call that the reason or purpose of life itself.

It's a simple philosophy, rationalization, and justification for a simple mind.

I think hedonists, and the promotion thereof, sexpose the minds behind it.

Mooooooooooo is hereby guilty as charged. He represents those on ILP perfectly. They cannot think "beyond" pleasure. Life is only about maximizing pleasure, tied in with liberalism, as long as we aren't imposing on other people's pleasure. How do liberal hedonists, egalitarians and utilitarians, justify themselves?

Ignorance is bliss. Their pleasure is built on somebody else's pain, halfway across the world.

Out of sight, out of mind. These pieces of shit don't know, and don't care to know, where their pleasure comes from.

Usually one man's pleasure is another man's pain.

I see it like this -
The experience of pain/suffering and pleasure alone does not provide growth, not even for an animal. If an animal were to live in an environment with a great surplus and easy living conditions, compared to its natural habitat then that animal would, following its pleasure/pain motivations, deteriorate in its strengths and capabilities.

Modern man is an example of that.
Pleasure and pain on their own don't seem to be enough. Something is missing.

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Life is not about pleasure nor pain.

It makes more sense to say - It's not about maximizing any of the two.
Not about idealizing any of the two.

Nobody is idealizing suffering.
Suffering is a fact man avoids, as all life does, automatically.

All life is organizing, in the Flux.
Flux is a fact, not an ideal.

Christians purport to idealize suffering, since their lord and savior "suffered for the sake of all mankind".

Hedonism does not mesh well with Christianity, since the Christian's pleasure and rewards are in the afterlife, it's not supposed to take place while you're living. Christians frown on hedonism for this reason.

Also hedonism was frowned upon in communism, if one communist had a surplus and luxury, then others would covet that and seek to destroy that "inequality".

Satyr wrote:

Nobody is idealizing suffering.
Suffering is a fact man avoids, as all life does, automatically.

All life is organizing, in the Flux.
Flux is a fact, not an ideal.

I agree about the hedonists maximizing pleasure -
In the dichotomy of pleasure and pain; All suffering which is endured is only endured because of the thought of increased pleasure at a later time. And if it's not pleasure at a later point in time on a conscious level then it's on a sub-conscious level and if it's not that then the suffering is not really suffering but in some way a pleasure to the organism. No matter what, it's always viewed through the lens of pleasure/suffering as an opposing push and pull and the individual is supposed to maximize pleasure.

Life, growth, happens in between extremes.

I don't know about the life is trying to avoid suffering. Yes and No.
Too much suffering usually leads to atrophy, same goes for pleasure but successful avoidance entails that the threshold for suffering is being continuously lowered because the organism weakens.

Mo wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

And *because* he discriminates in terms of pleasure/pain, and wills to maximize his pleasure, whether that pleasure is pursued in terms of power, beauty, excellence, f---ing cows, he continues to live in *his* 'discriminated' reality that is least painful and brings him the sensation of maximum pleasure, 5 mins. or 5 years doesn't matter.

Yes, it clearly does...
A hedonist will act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. (They are not likely to do things that give them very brief pleasure, and a lifetime of pain. That would be maximizing pain, obviously).

And therefore because he seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, and all his actions and reasonings are so pre-informed, he lives sheltered from reality, and this avoidance of pain to ultimately be able to enjoy the pleasure only, live a pleasurable life, makes him a decadent in the eyes of the master, and so 5 mins. or years is irrelevant.

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Therefore he is a decadent.

A person is decadent if they get pleasure from what harms them. A hedonist who does not is clearly not decadent.

To the hedonist who thinks of pleasure in terms of 5 years, the hedonist who thinks in terms of 5 mins. is a decadent.

To the master who sees the hedonist as a slave to his sensations is a decadent per se.

The Stanford link and Aristotle himself only argue for what would be a long lasting pleasure, without critiquing being ruled by pleasure per se, and so degrees of hedonism come to the fore, and becomes a sub-subject, while the premise of hedonism remains untouched.
To a master, what can it matter if the highest good was a pleasure that lasted 5 years or 5 mins., when taking anything as an ends in itself is a nihilistic self-retardation, a "human" reduced to the sensation of pleasure is standing for the statement he wants life to be a relief. "Life is/should be a relief" is the statement he is affirming - and that is nihilistic self-denial and life-denial. The hatred for life as it is - the drive towards ordering in a universe of chaos.

Do you understand??? Do you get what you are advocating?

Step outside of yourself.

Hedonism is not 'that' noble asceticism where endurance of pain and building tolerance produces a consciousness of power [experienced as pleasure], of what one can do without - which is the opposite of that hedonism which avoids life *to* indulge in pleasure, or those Xt. asceticisms that engage in painful self-mortifications to repress, numb, and deaden the body so life can become tolerable...

The Master's asceticism is about cultivating 'indifference' which does not mean living carelessly, but a steadfastness of undisturbed inner order manifesting as calm - it is being indifferent to fate to be able to love and affirm life for what it IS!

Hedonistic asceticism whether it is epicurean, delighting in 'discrimination' and 'reasoning' that shuts off life with the dictum the beautiful life in the pleasant garden is the only good, is the only highest life, or the Xt. asceticism that has to kill the body to be able to "enjoy life" are both caricatures of life, are both nihilisms, are both decadent, are both inferior to the master.

Get it?

[As a note to myself, I would even include Sloterdijk's ascetic agenda as dia/gnostical as someone characterized him...
Living within "immunological sphere", a bubble of our own is his answer to get along with everybody in a cosmopolitanism... but that's another temperature.]

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--Imagine someone (a hedonist) who gets pleasure from reading great literature, learning an instrument, making art, having conversations with interesting people, etc. Or, maybe they get pleasure from raising a family, watching and helping their offspring grow into their selves, etc. They get pleasure out of their own accomplishments, health, exercise of their natural abilities, or when thinking about their experiences and about how they have lived.

Like I said, when one lives for pleasure only, then everything you say - honour, excellence - all become prostituted as a sensation of relief-providence in the face of pain. That is a caricature of life, which is what Hedonism amounts to.

I already said, a hedonist can get derive great pleasure in the act of painting itself, and it wouldn't matter what kind of fART he produces.
This 5 year scenario of painting is no different from a 5 min. scenario of f----, and deriving pleasure from the sensation of f---- itself, and it wouldn't matter which cow you did.

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If the only criticism you have of a hedonist is that they must like numbing themselves with drinking, drugs, avoidance, etc---(btw, things that tend to cause greater pain within a life as a whole)---then that's your own ignorance, and it's a criticism of you, not hedonism. That criticism exposes the critic's own decadence.

Aristotle must have been a decadent I guess, because he certainly critiqued the HEDONIST and HEDONISM FOR the kind of pleasures, the 'good' that would be included in this umbrella.

A static platonic mind thinks in terms of absolutes after faulting Sauwelios for it; so imagine the irony you are exhibiting. DEGREES.

There are degrees of decadence "among" hedonists [a decadence of quantity splitting hairs between 5 mins. and years] and hedonism itself is a decadence "among" the masters, [a decadence of quality in the premise itself] and the master himself may count as a decadence among the overmen... and they among the over-overmen...

Remember I asked you if you believed in hierarchies, and you said there are many kinds, but that means you were atleast recognizing there is one. Given that, is it impossible that there can be superior ways of living than hedonism?

If so, you are retarding evolution, and that makes you a nihilist.

Or are you just going to dissolve and level this chain, "There are degrees of decadence "among" hedonists and hedonism itself is a decadence "among" the masters, and the master himself may count as a decadence among the overmen... and they among the over-overmen..." , saying, hedonism and master-morality is the same thing?

If so, you are levelling everything into a reduction, to which your own critique of reductionism would apply to you. And that kind of meaninglessness again makes you a nihilist.


Is this what you want to do to save face?

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And this point, why don't you just try slipping into one of the criticisms of hedonism that I've already given you? --They're pretty good...

What have you given me but apologies for decadence?
What have you given me but apologies for just-because?
What have you given me but reductionisms and word play?

Living for pleasure-for-its-own-sake (whether that be beauty, power, excellence) is what even animals do... and hedonists therefore are no different from animals.
And that's not living, that's just existing.

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No, the generalization doesn't apply since life IS suffering, need,, and pleasure is the satiation of this need..

One person can say that life is suffering/pain, and that pleasure is just the reduction in degree of suffering/pain. Another person can say that life is health/pleasure, and that pain is just the reduction in degree of health/pleasure. The difference is just an emotional/psychological one, not a conceptual one.
For example, I don't really care whether you think tallness is the absence of shortness, or whether you think shortness is the absence of tallness.

You dumb duck, if this were just a matter of flipping between heads and tails, and word changing like saying light is the absence of darkness and dark being the absence of light amounting to the same, then this whole argument would only be a childish ego issue.

You dumb duck, its not what I like to phrase.

If you can agree that the world is chaos, and entropy is the norm, and our life is an exception, a rarity, then life is an ordering in a world that IS disorder.
And any children's physics book is enough to tell you every order, every maintenance is a cost, is maintained at a price to pay. This is a pain, an expenditure that needs to be constantly replenished if it is to maintain itself.
From an apollonian point of view, Life is rooted in this need to order, to maintenance, to stability. It is thus rooted in suffering, and any relief from this can only be temporary, and any pleasure can therefore be only temporary.

Pain on habituation presses itself less forcefully on the conscious, and we call this steadiness of rhythm-to-pain as relief, pleasure. Pleasure is the consciousness of power, of the dominating will 'managing' to press things into service, into a steadiness upon which the will stands to expand and grow further - exceeding itself. Pleasure is felt as an overflow because of the consciousness of our capacity, our power to dominate our inner disorder into a steadiness that therefore doesn't disturb or enter the consciousness so blatantly. Life feels good because we feel powerful.

Pleasure is a degree of pain that life IS "essen-tially".

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You are free to have that conversation with whoever you like, other than me.

If you are content with your own hypocrisy, and justifying your hypocrisy with word-games, and cannot accept something because it doesn't sound good and pleasing to your ears, dont butcher my time either.

Lyssa wrote:

And therefore because he seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, and all his actions and reasonings are so pre-informed, he lives sheltered from reality, and this avoidance of pain to ultimately be able to enjoy the pleasure only, live a pleasurable life, makes him a decadent in the eyes of the master, and so 5 mins. or years is irrelevant.

The hedonist will shelter himself from whatever he disvalues, just as anyone with a value will shelter themselves from whatever is its opposite.

Your caricature that a hedonist is someone who can’t see 5 minutes in front of his face, or doesn't care, to weigh the consequences of his actions, is utterly, completely idiotic. Why don’t you try reading an actual hedonist, before you speak?

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"Life is/should be a relief" is the statement he is affirming

Conceptually, it’s possible for a hedonist to hoist on himself tremendous pain, when he believes that the pleasure derived from the accomplishment that that pain was required for is worth it---i.e., outweighs the pain. --That’s maximizing pleasure, even though it involves tremendous pain. But, I guess, according to you... a hedonist has never seen the inside of a gym.

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The Master's asceticism is about cultivating 'indifference' which does not mean living carelessly, but a steadfastness of undisturbed inner order manifesting as calm

That sounds like Epicurus, who was a hedonist.

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Like I said, when one lives for pleasure only, then everything you say - honour, excellence - all become prostituted as a sensation of relief-providence in the face of pain. That is a caricature of life, which is what Hedonism amounts to.

A hedonist cannot account for what other values (that cannot be reduced to pleasure/pain) actually are. The hedonist is absurdly and preposterously reductionistic, and butchers the world with his narrow-mindedness----in the same way that someone who reduces every value to a reduction in need/suffering does. In fact, they’re both forms of hedonism.

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Remember I asked you if you believed in hierarchies, and you said there are many kinds, but that means you were atleast recognizing there is one. Given that, is it impossible that there can be superior ways of living than hedonism?

Obviously not. Did you not read my criticisms of hedonism?

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You dumb duck, if this were just a matter of flipping between heads and tails, and word changing like saying light is the absence of darkness and dark being the absence of light amounting to the same, then this whole argument would only be a childish ego issue.

For you, it is a childish ego issue. It’s your idiotic caricaturing that gives you away.

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If you are content with your own hypocrisy, and justifying your hypocrisy with word-games, and cannot accept something because it doesn't sound good and pleasing to your ears, dont butcher my time either.

What hypocrisy?

Lyssa why do you give all your attention to Mooooo and not me?! It's not fair!!

Human beings are just another animal.

I am surprised how everybody here is opposed to something like hedonism.

It's like everybody here is trying to make a moral valuation on the subject.

On this forum that's way too funny.

Æon wrote:

Lyssa why do you give all your attention to Mooooo and not me?!  It's not fair!!

See that comment, douche-bag?
How does this belong here?
You begging for attention.
Nothing to say...you have no clue what is being discussed and here you are inserting your mind-farts.

Try it one more time and let's see what happens.

Ah yes, right, I've detracted from this brilliant thread.

Allow me to redirect myself to the correct course of action and thought. Value, what's that about? Why do people have values? Could values be about, let me think here.......needs? Could it be that food is valuable, because it nourishes us? Could it be a chaste blonde petite female is valuable to me because I need to reproduce? And would she have that same value if I did not need to reproduce?

Is reproduction a need or a want?

Are there any values disconnected from need?


There Satyr, now I demand some rewards for my adherence to your fascist rules! Some positive attention is enough, pat me on my head and rub my tummy now.

Mo wrote:

Your caricature that a hedonist is someone who can’t see 5 minutes in front of his face, or doesn't care, to weigh the consequences of his actions, is utterly, completely idiotic. Why don’t you try reading an actual hedonist, before you speak?

You asked me where you are being hypocritical - here is one.

Is the standard conventional definition of hedonism positing pleasure as the Only innate good, and maximizing it and minimizing pain? Yes or no?

If so, then it doesn't matter if its 5 mins. or 5 years, as long as, evaluating and weighing the consequences of his actions in terms of pleasure/pain is reduction of life to sensation... and taking it as the sole ends makes him a nihilist as he lives within this sheltered reality informed by avoidance of pain. This makes him a decadent in the eyes of the master.

Mo wrote:

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Quote :"Life is/should be a relief" is the statement he is affirming

Conceptually, it’s possible for a hedonist to hoist on himself tremendous pain, when he believes that the pleasure derived from the accomplishment that that pain was required for is worth it---i.e., outweighs the pain. --That’s maximizing pleasure, even though it involves tremendous pain. But, I guess, according to you... a hedonist has never seen the inside of a gym.

Hypocrisy no. 2

Endurance of pain for a rewarding pleasure is missing the point. Whenever something is done to avoid pain, to live in a manner that life becomes most pleasurable, then "Life is/should be a relief" is the "ultimate" statement the hedonist is affirming. That IS the intention of minimizing pain.

"Mo wrote:

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Quote :The Master's asceticism is about cultivating 'indifference' which does not mean living carelessly, but a steadfastness of undisturbed inner order manifesting as calm

That sounds like Epicurus, who was a hedonist.

It would, when you play foul and cut off a chunk of my whole sentence and present it like that.

Hypocrisy no.3

Mo wrote:

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Quote :Like I said, when one lives for pleasure only, then everything you say - honour, excellence - all become prostituted as a sensation of relief-providence in the face of pain. That is a caricature of life, which is what Hedonism amounts to.

A hedonist cannot account for what other values (that cannot be reduced to pleasure/pain) actually are. The hedonist is absurdly and preposterously reductionistic, and butchers the world with his narrow-mindedness----

Good that you admit, not like you have a choice.

But then pretending like you gave me something to reflect on, when you are just giving me an apology is

Hypocrisy no. 4

Mo wrote:

in the same way that someone who reduces every value to a reduction in need/suffering does. In fact, they’re both forms of hedonism.

What?

I have explained why Life is rooted in pain as thermodynamically, it Costs to maintain order, in an entropic universe, and affirming that reality As-It-Is is the opposite of the hedonist's avoiding it to experience life only as pleasure. Am I "reducing" everything as need/suffering, or is that what reality is?

Your own reductionism is

Hypocrisy no. 5


Unless you wish to argue entropy is not the norm of the universe.

Unless you wish to argue order does not cost.

Go ahead. You are one dumb duck, try arguing this too. Do it.

Mo wrote:

Obviously not. Did you not read my criticisms of hedonism?

Your "criticism" is a saying that master-value is the same as hedonism. That is not affirmation of hierarchy, but nihilistic reductionism.

And then asking me if I read you attentively, is

Hypocrisy no. 6

Mo wrote:

Quote :

Quote :You dumb duck, if this were just a matter of flipping between heads and tails, and word changing like saying light is the absence of darkness and dark being the absence of light amounting to the same, then this whole argument would only be a childish ego issue.

For you, it is a childish ego issue. It’s your idiotic caricaturing that gives you away.

Why would I have an ego issue with you - haven't you already dominated me, you dumb duck? Your accusation just now has revealed, it is an ego issue for you.

You dumb duck, if I am only playing childish games and not you who's committing reductionism and word-swapping like reality were a matter of "whatever" feels best, Prove to me entropy is not the norm of the universe.

If not, I will have to cite this as

Hypocrisy no 7

Mo wrote:

Quote :

Quote :If you are content with your own hypocrisy, and justifying your hypocrisy with word-games, and cannot accept something because it doesn't sound good and pleasing to your ears, dont butcher my time either.

What hypocrisy?

Now you see it.... now you don't?

Hypocrisy no. 8

Satyr wrote:

Æon wrote:

Lyssa why do you give all your attention to Mooooo and not me?!  It's not fair!!

See that comment, douche-bag?
How does this belong here?
You begging for attention.
Nothing to say...you have no clue what is being discussed and here you are inserting your mind-farts.

Try it one more time and let's see what happens.

Neon wants to exhibit his hedonism, he wants to provide himself as example and fodder for the subject in question, don't stop him...   

Æon wrote:

Lyssa why do you give all your attention to Mooooo and not me?!  It's not fair!!

Just because.

LaughingMan wrote:

Human beings are just another animal.

I am surprised how everybody here is opposed to something like hedonism.

Humans are not "just" animals, not "only" animals... maybe you are?

Quote :

It's like everybody here is trying to make a moral valuation on the subject.

On this forum that's way too funny.

Moral valuation is how you read assessment of self-stunting to the state of a cud-chewing cow content to sleep in the sun? It is a master moralism then.

Lyssa wrote:

Neon wants to exhibit his hedonism, he wants to provide himself as example and fodder for the subject in question, don't stop him...   

You and Satired just know me too damn well.................maybe better than I know myself???

SATYRRRRRRR, Lyssa is going off topic, command her to respond to my relevant response to the OP. She's not addressing my questions!

I wanted to know one important thing.......................


Can anybody here, or elsewhere, name one value, just one, that does not derive from a need???????

Just name one value, one evaluation, that does not represent a biological, anatomical, deficiency?????????

Are not...........all values a reflection of a very specific need?

And finally, what is the difference between a need and a "want"???


Satyr, fire anybody who dodges these questions. See how good I'm being? I'm doing very well, staying on topic.

Lyssa wrote:

Is the standard conventional definition of hedonism positing pleasure as the Only innate good, and maximizing it and minimizing pain? Yes or no?

Yes, that’s right.

Quote :

If so, then it doesn't matter if its 5 mins. or 5 years, as long as, evaluating and weighing the consequences of his actions in terms of pleasure/pain is reduction of life to sensation...

A hedonist cares about what happens 6 minutes from now because he knows that the consequences of his action will bear on his pleasure and pain, in 6 minutes. E.g., Going to a dentist is not pleasant. A hedonist goes to a dentist because he knows that gum disease and rotten teeth would be far more painful than the minor displeasure of a trip to the dentist, twice a year.

Your caricature is idiotic.

Quote :

Hypocrisy no. 2

Endurance of pain for a rewarding pleasure is missing the point.

No, that IS the point. --A hedonist maximizes pleasure when he pursues something that gives him tremendous pain, so long as he anticipates and believes that the pleasure will outweigh it. E.g., Epicurus, a hedonist, forgoes the pleasure of pursuing runaway desires, because he knows that long-term, they’ll lead to greater pain.

Your caricature is idiotic.

Quote :

I have explained why Life is rooted in pain as thermodynamically, it Costs to maintain order, in an entropic universe, and affirming that reality As-It-Is is the opposite of the hedonist's avoiding it to experience life only as pleasure. Am I "reducing" everything as need/suffering, or is that what reality is?

Yes, you are reductionist...

One person can say that life is essentially need/suffering, which makes ‘pleasure’ just a degree of suffering’s absence. Another person can say that life is essentially pleasure, and therefore ‘suffering’ is just a degree of pleasure’s absence. Both of these have the SAME FAULT of absolutizing and universalizing concepts. We understand concepts by contrasting and distinguishing and discriminating differences---and to stretch a concept to cover the essence of life in general will obliterate its contrasting concepts, and thus the original concept itself. A concept that applies to everything, consequently applies to nothing meaningfully.

IOW, you will fail to adequately explain what many values/virtues actually are, by characterizing them as reduction of need/suffering, just as you would if you tried to cash them out purely in terms of pleasure. Those are two horns of the same hedonism. You are the hedonist.

Your “master value” is just code for “hellenic asceticism” ---which, Epicurus as an example, is hedonism.

Get it?

Your crusade is against a projection of yourself.

Ignorance wrote:

Lyssa wrote:Is the standard conventional definition of hedonism positing pleasure as the Only innate good, and maximizing it and minimizing pain? Yes or no?Yes, that’s right.

Quote :If so, then it doesn't matter if its 5 mins. or 5 years, as long as, evaluating and weighing the consequences of his actions in terms of pleasure/pain is reduction of life to sensation...

A hedonist cares about what happens 6 minutes from now because he knows that the consequences of his action will bear on his pleasure and pain, in 6 minutes. E.g., Going to a dentist is not pleasant. A hedonist goes to a dentist because he knows that gum disease and rotten teeth would be far more painful than the minor displeasure of a trip to the dentist, twice a year.

Your caricature is idiotic.

That is an idiotic example as it does not take a hedonist to do that, any man would want value his health. But a hedonist would value his health in order to be able to enjoy the pleasurable life, and that reduction to sensationalism makes the hedonist a decadent to the master. But even your idiotic example goes to show that left on its own, without care, entropy occurs causing decay to the teeth, and it costs [there is an unpleasantness] to go to the dentist for health-maintenance. Life is rooted in this costly need to resist disorder.

Ignorance wrote:

Endurance of pain for a rewarding pleasure is missing the point.

No, that is the point. --A hedonist maximizes pleasure when he pursues something that gives him tremendous pain, so long as he anticipates and believes that the pleasure will outweigh it. E.g., Epicurus, a hedonist, forgoes the pleasure of pursuing runaway desires, because he knows that long-term, they’ll lead to greater pain.

Your caricature is idiotic.

Whenever something is done to avoid pain, to live in a manner that life becomes most pleasurable, most rewarding in terms of pleasure alone, then "Life is/should be a relief" is the "ultimate" statement the hedonist is affirming. That IS the intention of minimizing pain.

This IS THE intention of minimizing pain.

The hedonist is a decadent.

Ignorance wrote:

Quote :I have explained why Life is rooted in pain as thermodynamically, it Costs to maintain order, in an entropic universe, and affirming that reality As-It-Is is the opposite of the hedonist's avoiding it to experience life only as pleasure. Am I "reducing" everything as need/suffering, or is that what reality is?

Yes, you are reductionist...

One person can say that life is essentially need/suffering, which makes ‘pleasure’ just a degree of suffering’s absence. Another person can say that life is essentially pleasure, and therefore ‘suffering’ is just a degree of pleasure’s absence. Both of these have the SAME FAULT of absolutizing and universalizing concepts. We understand concepts by contrasting and distinguishing and discriminating differences---and to stretch a concept to cover the essence of life in general will obliterate its contrasting concepts, and thus the original concept itself. A concept that applies to everything, consequently applies to nothing meaningfully.

In other words, you cannot prove Entropy is not the norm of the universe, and Order doesn't cost.

In other words, life is not rooted in suffering because I want it or want to define it that way, but because that is a scientific fact.

Absolutism, you dumb duck, is positing Life SHOULD only be pleasurable [contra reality], which is different from the master-value that says Life IS rooted in suffering because it costs to maintain order which is what reality is.

I accept your submission, unless you can prove Entropy is not the universal norm and Order doesn't cost.

Ignorance wrote:

IOW, you will fail to adequately explain what many values/virtues actually are, by characterizing them as reduction of need/suffering, just as you would if you tried to cash them out purely in terms of pleasure. Those are two horns of the same hedonism. You are the hedonist.

You are a dishonest hypocrite who collapses hierarchy and then goes about claiming he believes in it.

Unless you can prove Entropy is not the norm and Order doesn't cost,,, I will say, I am not the one reducing things to suffering... and therefore defining values in degrees of it.
This is plain bottoms-up thinking.

Because you are a hedonist, you believe everybody else like you, infers reality according to whatever picture pleases them.
That is you reduced to your ignorance.

Ignorance wrote:

Your “master value” is just code for “hellenic asceticism” ---which, Epicurus as an example, is hedonism.

Epicureanism is not a master-value, but nice try collapsing master-value with hedonism.

N. even calls Xt., one kind of Epicureanism in the Antichrist. That should give you an idea, as someone who is a master psychologist as N. was, as to what Epicureanism is.

I did not call Satyr an Epicureanist, but an Epicurean-Ascetic - someone with noble asceticism [master values] - therefore - able to enjoy his senses - *because* he is not ruled by pleasure (as epicurus was ruled).

Get it?

I can quote Satyr if you want me to.

You are one dumb duck.

Ignorance wrote:

Your crusade is against a projection of yourself.

When you have nothing to save face, your inner psychologist resorts to banal statements like that. Your grit is showing...

And, I only fight wars, not crusades; that kind of slave-moralistic religious talk suits you.

Take my advice. If you have some honesty to spare yourself, take three days and Think, before you reply.
Let the right Thought in.

I can assure you I do not have the time to play ego-games not just with you, but anybody. If you remain unconvinced about that, remain inside yourself and never step out.

1. You said that a hedonist accounts for only short-term pleasure (5 mins, where 5 years away is irrelevant). Now apparently you recognize that hedonists go to the dentist.

2. You said that a hedonist doesn’t care what kind of cow he fucks, or what crap he eats. Does fucking a cow give you the pleasure that fucking a beautiful woman does? Does eating a shit sandwich give you the pleasure that a tuna nicoise would?

3. You think a hedonist will eat/fuck indiscriminately until reality kills him. As if overindulgence doesn’t cause pain…

4. You said that hedonism would have painful repercussions. What? –A hedonist is someone who, as well as maximizeing pleasure, also MINIMIZES PAIN---since those are the same thing.

5. You think that a hedonist is a decadent, but you only think that because your own pleasures are decadent ones, and a hedonist must be like you.

6. You think a hedonist is a slave to his sensations, as if that’s a good characterization of the hedonism of Epicurus, or any other hedonist.

7. You think it’s a static platonic mind that thinks in terms of absolutes, while you absolutize suffering/need. (To absolutize a concept is to stretch it over reality as a whole, and to make its contrasting concepts only degrees of it).

8. You think that “life is rooted in pain”, and that pleasure is just some degree of pain, and so apparently you think that life is rooted in pleasure by degrees---because you call that pain. You are the hedonist. --Obviously.

9. You think I’m a reductionist. Apparently you didn’t read my OP.

Lyssa wrote:

I can assure you I do not have the time to play ego-games not just with you, but anybody. If you remain unconvinced about that, remain inside yourself and never step out.

You are playing ego games because you refuse to look at the person (or idea) in favour of your simplistic caricature, which is easier for you to abuse and feel like you can lord over. And you are protected from reality because you can plug your ears, look at the ground, and repeat your simplistic and ignorant caricature.

Lyssa wrote:

You are a dishonest hypocrite who collapses hierarchy and then goes about claiming he believes in it.

There are all kinds of hierarchies, which reflect different skills, abilities, values, etc. I would never respect a hierarchy that put me below any poster on this forum. That would be a denial of reality.

The ascetic wants to change himself to endure more need/suffering...and so he does not minimize his experience of the world, he becomes more tolerant of it; more able to endure higher levels of existence.

The nihilist wants to change the world to be more considerate of his endurance levels.
He wants to change the world to meet his requirements.
He loves cocoons and sheltering environments within which he can live in ignorant bliss, within shared lies...and in servitude.  

The hedonist wants to avoid need/suffering, and so avoid experiencing existence above a certain level, determined by his endurance levels as this was inherited.
Even when he does use asceticism it is only to increase a future potential for his self-numbing.

Maximizing pleasure:
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.
A hunter does not let a small catch run away because he may be killing something bigger, and tastier.
He maximizes his nutrient intake by eating whatever he can kill, which will not kill him.

If you want to maximize your pleasure in wine drinking you do not forgo drinking lesser wines because the higher end wines are sooooooooo much more superior to the lower-end wines that their higher price tag - the higher cost, suffering - is justified.
Even someone with a more refined palate would not be such a snob as to not drink lesser wines....particularly not if his goal was MAXIMIZING his pleasure in drinking wine.    

A hedonist/hunter might not eat shit, like a douche-bag would say, but he would rather eat a squirrel than dream of the pork ribs, he may or may not enjoy on some later date.
THAT is maximization.
Maximizing, your moron, is about increasing the probability of...

Getting a supermodel is highly unlikely, or would entail great effort/money/risk, ergo maximization for a douche-bag hedonist, now trying to find a way out of the hole he placed himself in, would mean he would fuck what he thought was easily accessible to him - this is maximization of potentials.
How highly he evaluates his own abilities to attract a model rather than a fat idiot, is in play.

Given that pleasure is pleasure, and by all accounts fat girls put more work into the sexual act, because they want to please their man more, and many pretty girls are known for being cold cunts who want to be pleasured, a hedonist who is not a hypocrite coward, would opt to fuck the lesser female he will have a better chance of getting, than masturbate on the hope that one day he will get the pretty model.
THAT is maximization.
Game Theory, you imbecile!!!
Maximization of the odds.
Remember in the film A Beautiful Mind, you cowardly, romantic cunt?
Why does it make more sense to go for the lesser girls rather than the pretty one?
So as to MAXIMIZE the possible pleasure of getting sexual pleasure from a girl, you cunt!

Trust me, you stupid cunt....in orgasm there is no difference.
The orgasm itself is the same.
Close the lights and go at it, if maximizing is your goal...you hypocritical cunt.
Improvise...maximize!!!

Where there is a difference between a fat girl and a supermodel is in the before and the after...not the during the act.
But you are a romantic idealist, and a moron, so it is understandable that you would think fucking a pretty girl offers a difference in pleasure to such a higher degree that it would justify the cost/risk/effort...all of which entail suffering.
You are proposing enduring more suffering, maximizing suffering, because you think that the pleasure from a pretty girls would be so Much more pleasing that you are now maximizing pleasure...which is what naive, sexually inexperienced, turds, would think.  

An ascetic would opt to go without rather than fuck something not to his standards...not a Hedonist...you imbecile...not unless you now want to redefine hedonism to also include asceticism.
Why not?
The way you are going morality is hedonistic, basic survival is hedonistic, taking a dump is hedonistic, so why not asceticism...and then sadomasochism - pain is also pleasure..VOILA, you've closed the circle in your tiny little desperate mind.

Know what's funny, cunt?
If Lyssa were a male, you would not be paying attention.
Shows what is your motive, in regards to hedonism.
 
A hedonist in not an idealist, you idiot!!!
Even if he has an ideal pleasure, he does not reject all pleasures, if he is truly maximizing, so as to save himself for the ideal one.

No absolutes, you moron, need/suffering is the sensation of existing...nothing to do with an absolute.
asceticism increases one's ability o cope with need/suffering, by exercising the Will, and habituating the mind and body to higher levels of stress.
A hedonist, because he is a hedonist wanting to MAXIMIZE pleasure opportunities and AVOID need/suffering, will atrophy, in this way making him increasingly less able to tolerate need/suffering, forcing him to up his pleasure levels, and their frequency...like an addict would with a drug that numbs him to the experience of existence and the friction of Flux upon the Becoming/Ordering which is an organism.

You MOOOO, are one dumb bovine.
Maybe dominating Sauwelios, who is effete, still stuck on Nietzsche, is your only source of pride.
But hey...if it gives you pleasure, why not?

Lyssa wrote:

LaughingMan wrote:

Human beings are just another animal.

I am surprised how everybody here is opposed to something like hedonism.

Humans are not "just" animals, not "only" animals... maybe you are?

Quote :

It's like everybody here is trying to make a moral valuation on the subject.

On this forum that's way too funny.

Moral valuation is how you read assessment of self-stunting to the state of a cud-chewing cow content to sleep in the sun? It is a master moralism then.

Ah, yes, you're one of those following a Christian humanist metanarrative where human beings are the chosen species that are special and unique here on earth.  That's cute.

All we are is a more evolved primate. [Another slightly smarter animal]  That's it.  Deal with it......

By the gods, the feral boy will post another inane comment in a thread way over his head...

LaughingMan wrote:

Ah, yes, you're one of those following a Christian humanist metanarrative where human beings are the chosen species that are special and unique here on earth.  That's cute.

All we are is a more evolved primate. [Another slightly smarter animal]  That's it.  Deal with it......

"Meta-narrative"....
I like.
It almost seems like you are a thinker.

And when you get over elitism not only being about bling-bling, and wealth, wild-child, you might delve into how man being a smarter animal leads to some men being smarter than feral boys so desperate that Armageddon is now their only hope.

You see, boy, if anyone is a Christian, it is you.
Who else, but a self-hating, Christian, would dream of the end, and death, as a beginning of a "better life"?
Who else but a degenerate, life-hating, hypocrite, Christian, would sacrifice their own child to fulfill their commitment to themselves?

You, boy, are not only a Jew, and an idiot, but, and rightly so, one who is so aware of his own inferiority that he now only hopes all die so that it disappears, and all memory of it along with it.

You, boy, belong with Purple Dragon, over on ILP.
The only reason you are here is pussy, and you are annoyingly obtuse in every Forum....including your own.

When a hypocrite and a coward dreams of doing away with perspectives so as to preserve universal morality, he will forget the difference between noumena/abstractions that refer to sensual data and noumena/abstractions that refer back to noumena/abstractions.

In the case of suffering/pleasure, both are noetic interpretations, sensations of phenomena.
To say Flux means things are changing, and this change is measured by time.
Time being a measure of change that occurs outside the human brain, and which the human brain interprets using a priori concepts, constructing hot/cold, hard/soft, suffering/pleasure, slow/fast, white/black...

Need is a human interpretation of this change, as the sensation of Flux upon its organizing, its becoming, its ordering.
To say pleasure is a negation of the suffering, which is this sensation, is a reference outside the human skull.

But then there are concepts purely noetic, like justice, morality, love....which are meaningless without a brain there, and without an organism with its self-interests to then call good.

The romantic coward will go to great ends to preserve the purity of morality, by detaching it from its phenomenal necessity, as an evolutionary product making social behavior possible. For a secular humanist, desperate for a God, any replacement will do: love, pleasure, morality, humanity...

The concept is sanctified by making it into an end....which means, by detaching it from all earthly utilities.
The sensation did not evolve for a reason, does not represent an interpretation of a reality outside the interpreting brain, but is, itself holy, the for its own sake - as God who created Himself - a pure sensation void of all ulterior motives of necessities.

What communion, such a naive coward enjoys, with a self-admitted cynic, who harmed herself to feel, is something one must analyze psychologically.

Shit for Brains wrote:

Some values simply do not need further justification, because they are their own justification. That’s not circular, that’s foundational.

No need for justification, like for morality, or for pleasure.'
It is so "just because it is so".

Foundation being another word for absolute, God, for the beginning.
A universe of fluidity founded on a rock, a static thingness.
Not that circumstances are changing, along with everything else, making all judgments comparisons, but that some concepts are universal absolute TRUTHS....frozen in time/space, or existing in the non-existent outside space/time.

And he need not justify this, because it is itself its own justification...like God is His own Creator - God justifies God.  

Shit for Brains wrote:

No, not quite. Something has more or less value only in relation to another, but if something has value, it is simply because the world and your physiology is a certain way, rather than not.

And this "certain way" is set in stone, and not changing as you witness it all, making all value judgments circumstantial.

From here, a coward would go the absolute other way:
If so, a douche-bag, would day, then life would be impossible.

Only problem, for the douche-bag, being that change does not occur at a rate where patterns do not remain predictable and reliable over long enough periods of space/time to make life, as we know it, possible.
But this ephemeral nature of all phenomena, including the laws of nature, is not appealing to a coward.
He wants certainty, the romantic ideals that makes love eternal, pure, universal, something divine.

The forces of nature having now fragmented to 4 (Strong-Weak-Electromagnetic-Gravity), and still the turd is clueless.

Such a naive, romantic buffoon, wants the love of a woman to be sacred, pure, eternal....with no ulterior motives, no circumstantial, ephemeral, purposes...and he wants to enjoy it, to feel pleased, without the gnawing presence of his own selfishness, and his own fears, and his own hidden motives.

Enjoy a mindless naive, idiot passing judgment...

Shit for Brains wrote:

Martin Heidegger is a fool. He's the standard bearer of stupidity, in my mind.

A moron, an imbecile, a half-wit, simpleton, cunt, calling one of the Greatest minds of the past century a "fool".
Presumably because of his Nazi affair...which this Jew can never understand being that he is a Jew in mind and in body - in spirit.

Jews known for the sexual dysfunctions and their history of debauchery.

This mindless twit, this genetic filth, this piece of crap, sniffing behind females on-line, writing pretty poetry and clever drunken stories, calls Heidegger a fool, then goes on to pronounce morality objective, and pleasure an end in itself.