Pain/Pleasure principle

[maestro]

Consider the pain/pleasure principle.

I have observed myself and others for a while now and none of my observations contradict this principle: Everybody at all times acts to maximize pleasure or equivalently minimize pain. No living being seems exempt to the rule. Frequently the pleasure is psychological. Most people live in a continuous state of anxiety or unease and frequently act on compulsions to minimize their pain. Even people following high sounding goals such as wisdom are doing it for the psychological pleasure it provides them. Given this all pervading principle there is no doubt that the aim for the game of life is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain (Note that we have little choice in this aim, as little as we have over breathing or not).

Consider nonliving things: no pleasure no pain, it is reasonable to mark their state as being zero at all times. Most people are firmly in the negative due to their association of achievement with pleasure (for example a new car or house or promotion), this association is bad since while you yearn for the object of your desire you accumulate a lot of pain, while the pleasure it gives you is a spike and is poor compensation for the negative rewards accumulated till then, further the fact that you have habituated your mind to anxiety means that even after acquiring the thing it again settles to its anxious and dreadful state. In effect the aim of life is being pursued in a rather contradictory way.

Given this fact I would say that a Genius is someone who can keep his state firmly in the positive. One of the steps to that end would be to break this kind of mental associations as pointed above. In effect a Genius is a mental hacker he has rewired the mind/body to be highly pleasurable independent of external factors. Over the course of a lifetime the Genius has played the game of life infinitely better than an average person.

[Philosophaster]

This kind of observation is important, but not particularly insightful. Yeah, people like to feel good and dislike feeling bad, so they seek the former and avoid the latter. So what? The more important issue is how people go about doing this, e.g. whether they seek good feelings through murder and necrophilia or through looking for knowledge and helping others.

[maestro]

The more important issue is how people go about doing this, e.g. whether they seek good feelings through murder and necrophilia or through looking for knowledge and helping others.

As I said the goal is to maximize pleasure, it seems the first task is to make the ground state a positive one, what one does by doing things is only the icing on the cake, and should not be the main basis for pleasure, otherwise if you associate stuff with pleasure you risk accumulating a lot of negative reward (as long as you strive and yearn for the object of your desire).

[Jason]

The more important issue is how people go about doing this, e.g. whether they seek good feelings through murder and necrophilia or through looking for knowledge and helping others.

Why is this the more important issue? Because you derive(or hope to derive) pleasure from holding this stance?

[Philosophaster]

Why is this the more important issue? Because you derive(or hope to derive) pleasure from holding this stance?

Well, what people actually do has more bearing on my own goals and experiences than a bland psychological fact (people seek good feelings and avoid bad ones), so yes, sort of.

[maestro]

In view of the pleasure pain principle I am surprised that the people here decry happiness as a delusion and overrated, whist it is the implicit cause of every action. The only reason people seek enlightenment is because it promises a continuous state of happiness or peace.

If at the end of your striving for enlightenment you are a bitter ("wise") philosopher then the effort was surely wasted.

[bert]

by bert on Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:35 pm

Sure, the Id 'drives' Humans with a Social Instinct, a Financial Instinct, a Sexual Instinct...
I would have thought these 'drives' unified would constitute an urge to Survive..

The 'pleasure' would be derived from the Ego's power to 'deliver ' satisfaction of these desires wouldn't it?

pleasure is derived from thy love for Self.and you can show it no greater than giving up all you believe.
he is akin to the great purpose,his actions explained for him,good seen of his evil,without knowing,everyone satisfied with his will.

when the Ego sees Self-love - there is peace - it becomes the seer.directly we desire,we have lost all;"we are" what we desire,therefore we never obtain.desire nothing,and there is nothing that you shall not realise.desire is for completion,the inherent emotion that it is "all happiness",all wisdom,in constant harmony.but directly we believe,we are liars - and become identified with pain,yet pain and pleasure are one and the same.

[maestro]

pleasure is derived from thy love for Self.and you can show it no greater than giving up all you believe.

Even such a giving up is motivated by torment and the search for peace.

Can anyone here give me an example of a behavior which violates this pleasure/pain principle.

In light of this principle I am much wary of the search for truth, why would anybody propagate the truth or even know it, all looks like people clinging to comforting delusions or partial knowledge and spreading them to gain validation and pronouncing them as absolute to cover up their fears (or boost their egos).

[Shahrazad]

Can anyone here give me an example of a behavior which violates this pleasure/pain principle.

Nothing at all can violate it, ever. People who search for truth do it either because it gives them pleasure to find it, or it gives them pain / discomfort to not know the truth.

[brokenhead]

Can anyone here give me an example of a behavior which violates this pleasure/pain principle.

Nothing at all can violate it, ever. People who search for truth do it either because it gives them pleasure to find it, or it gives them pain / discomfort to not know the truth.

When a little child sticks his finger into a candle flame?

[maestro]

When a little child sticks his finger into a candle flame?

He does this to relieve the pain of curiosity, about the burn he does not know, so this does not violate the principle.

]Nothing at all can violate it, ever. People who search for truth do it either because it gives them pleasure to find it, or it gives them pain / discomfort to not know the truth.

So if the truth seeker has a choice between the truth and a pleasure greater that one that can be had by knowing the truth he is going to leave the truth, is that so?

[brokenhead]

He does this to relieve the pain of curiosity, about the burn he does not know, so this does not violate the principle.

Curiosity is painful? You would do better to suggest the child is seeking the pleasure of a new experience.

[Shahrazad]

maestro,

So if the truth seeker has a choice between the truth and a pleasure greater that one that can be had by knowing the truth he is going to leave the truth, is that so?

Not necessarily, because he'd still have to deal with the pain of not knowing the truth for the rest of his existence. This pain is unbearable for him, and guides his every move.

If the pleasure he was offered was large enough to make him forget about the pain of not knowing the truth, and the added pain of believing himself to be fraudulent / cowardly / immoral / wrong for ending the search, then yes, he would leave truth. But no pleasures I can imagine are that big for someone who is obsessed with truth.

-

[maestro]

Thus man seeks truth compulsively because it pains him not to.

But there is no reason why it must be so, why not remove this persistent pain, if the implicit goal is to minimize pain, why go about on a wild goose chase to fulfill it, rather than break this compulsion at the source.

[Shahrazad]

How do you suggest he break the compulsion? Have a brain surgeon remove whatever parts of his brain are involved in it?

[maestro]

Essentially one has to rewire or break mental habits, which does seem hard in the beginning, but 3 weeks are enough to break or create a new mental habit, if practiced with perseverance.

The point is that the association of certain achievement or acquisition to mental satisfaction is a roundabout way to acquire the aforementioned satisfaction. My point is why not acquire that directly, by rewiring the mind for satisfaction, and breaking the compulsive patterns.

[spelnxpert]

NO.
It's a fact people have chosen suffering then death so to spare others, sometimes complere strangers.

[Dan Rowden]

I'm sick of these fucking martyrs. My soup is cold!!

[Shahrazad]

It's a fact people have chosen suffering then death so to spare others, sometimes complere strangers.

This one is just too easy.

It gives some of us an enormous amount of pleasure to help other people. Added to that is the pleasure of knowing we will be regarded as heroes, and the feeling that our life was worth something.

-

[brokenhead]

It's a fact people have chosen suffering then death so to spare others, sometimes complere strangers.

This one is just too easy.

It gives some of us an enormous amount of pleasure to help other people. Added to that is the pleasure of knowing we will be regarded as heroes, and the feeling that our life was worth something.

-

So go ahead.

[Shahrazad]

Go ahead with what?

[spelnxpert]

It's a fact people have chosen suffering then death so to spare others, sometimes complere strangers.

This one is just too easy.

It gives some of us an enormous amount of pleasure to help other people. Added to that is the pleasure of knowing we will be regarded as heroes, and the feeling that our life was worth something.

-

That only covers known heroes, are you saying there are/were no possibility of unknown heros who sacrificed sometimes own life but rather have not died still chose death to spare something greater than themselves?
That's a pretty cynical way of thinking, if you were ever a mother you'ld know Im right.

[brokenhead]

Go ahead with what?

Well, you said this one is just too easy. I guess it was so easy it flew right over my head.

[samadhi]

Can anyone here give me an example of a behavior which violates this pleasure/pain principle.

Obviously not, since all you are doing is defining every action as pleasure seeking per se.

Here is another perspective. ( http://www.ochumanists.org/AdyaT03.htm ) There is something besides pleasure if you care to look. Maybe you don't, your definition doesn't leave much room, does it?

[maestro]

Here is another perspective. ( http://www.ochumanists.org/AdyaT03.htm ) There is something besides pleasure if you care to look. Maybe you don't, your definition doesn't leave much room, does it?

What is besides pleasure, do you have an example of something which a Buddha himself does which is free of this principle.

Some people distinguish between pleasure and happiness, I am not making that distinction.

Even the minutest action is not free from this principle. Thus if you want somebody to do something they would not normally do, you have to shift the pleasure pain equation in the action's favor. See this is what Adya is doing right here.

But this, the truth simply living to express itself, that was its only concern. The divine moves and expresses itself. It has no concern about how it makes one feel. That is one of the biggest concerns that any human can be relieved of, this immense burden of all the time being dominated by how is this going to make me feel? It's a weight that we humans carry with us until we have enough wisdom to put it down.