Hedonism & The Experience Machine: Would you plug in for good?

[ÁGUIA]

Pleasure itself is non-existant without a pain\struggle, only comparison with negative side gives pleasure a real existance.

Pretty much.

[Neon Knight]

I would rather not plug into the machine. I think this is because I desire an objective existence with a connection to deeper lasting reality.

My point was that reality does not last - everything turns to dust. But your first reason, "objective" . . . authentic . . . is a better one. I personally might use such a machine occasionally but not all the time because I must assume that unhappy experiences have some meaning in the long run.

[Hàkon]

I do fully understand your point, but if we will not take in account the moral side, public opinion and all other social related stuff we will have a simple Action-dophamine-pleasure scheme.

So Heroin\Cocaine\Other opioids and similar drugs provide an extreme amount of pleasure in short amount of time at cost of health related issues and are not better or worse than any other way.

Though obviously we as humans have a social side witch correlates our behaviour in favour of more socially acceptable ways of getting dophamine such as, as you've said becomming a doctor or buying a new house.

But at the bottom line the whole life is just a process of instant dophamine chase trough various trade-off choices, which life gives.

It certainly is.

It seems to me that societies fall and rise with these trade-offs; we opt for indulgement when it's affordable.

But the lack of strife makes it dull; the ability to feel pleasure is altogether lost.

Is it even worth the time to entertain the possibility? It's a universal rule that what goes up must come down (& come down it does, hard).
Nothing lasts forever. At best you can only prolong the period of pleasure, & shorten the duration of recovery in between pleasures.

In my mind it was implied, as we've already gone so far as to entertain the idea of a perpetual pleasure sans negatives. There's no need to make it more realistic as there is no pleasure machine in reality.






Besides me, that is.

[Norse]

Ultimately I think hedonism is childish. I think most people in years past encouraged death and suffering much earlier. When you encounter pain and struggle, you realize you still want to go on, but the motivation is different, there is then something more to your desires than pleasure. There comes the ethical and spiritual side of life, meaning. It's like how leftists, those hedonists, always blame crime on poverty, where in reality a lot of dirt poor people would rather die than steal. This is always something the leftists can't explain.

[Atvend]

Maroon a man on a desert and he would kill for a bottle of water, but place him on a steady source and he wont ever give it a second thought again. The value is happiness is a function of supply and demand, just like every other value.

And also third option destroys the thought experiment. Those of you who went for it, enjoy your addiction. Might as well have chosen option A.

[Sarmatian]

Real achievment produce a way more lasting satisfacction than drinking a good wine or having a good f*ck, I mean becaming a doctor, having a family or owning a house is gonna being much usefull for the rest of your life than having a shot of heroin or eating a pizza. Thear is a big diference betwen instant gratification and seeing the progress in somethig you are puting a lot of effort.

Inside of our brain it's all the same. Sense of achievement from becoming a successful professional with happy family life biochemically isn't any different from shot of heroine. It's all simple dopamine injection anyway. Just in first case it's persistent chain of small natural injections and the other one is one-time large artificial injection. For brain there is no such thing as 'real achievement', anything that increases dopamine is equally real and beneficial. That's why people becoming drug addicts. That's why mouse with electrode implanted into dopamine producing part of the brain will push the button till it's dead. That's why people with dysfunctional or exhausted dopamine system see no point in life and end up with suicide.

So no matter how reasonable you are now once attached to such machine you'll never want to go back to real life. Only external intervention may stop you and even then you'll feel cheated and would want to go back.

[Al-Meksiki]

I want to die

[ÁGUIA]

True living is acomplished by ups and downs. That is what is really living. There's no ups without downs and vice-versa. That is what connects us with our real experience of life. A constant straight line, it means one thing you are "dead". There's beauty in uglyness and uglyness in beauty.

[War Chef]

True living is acomplished by ups and downs. That is what is really living. There's no ups without downs and vice-versa. That is what connects us with our real experience of life. A constant straight line, it means one thing you are "dead". There's beauty in uglyness and uglyness in beauty.

I must be dead because my mood is steady and consistent. There's something beyond pleasure and pain my friend.