Oh noes, I has been down voted! :( I thought what I said made sense; too much bong-fueled nihilism, I suppose. Could someone please criticize me, I’d very much like some feedback concerning my errors (was that off-topic, was it written poorly, did I get something wrong?).
If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. FrankAdamek, which genetic overlords would you like to overthrow and which are your pals?
As far as pain being bad, I think it can be a little excessive sometimes. It would surely be nice if our negative sensations could work more cooperatively with our relatively new ability to use language and be rational. Give us a little more control when we can handle it, switch some of our bodies’ involuntary systems over from automatic to manual. This could have drawbacks, but if we could understand the purpose of these systems (specifically of pain, here) and then have the ability to regulate it in dire situations or when we are unable to react to it and it is merely torture, such as in terminally ill patients, who must instead be pumped up with morphine. That doesn’t make pain bad whatsoever, just a little primitive.
Nobody here disagrees with the factual history in your comment—that our brain circuitry is indeed the product of evolution. The moral interpretation you’re putting on top of it is questionable, and poorly supported in your comment… and, of course, a product of evolved brain circuitry. :)
You treat the history as news expected to shock us, with only one sufficiently hardheaded interpretation; actually it’s news that is very old to us, and there are many other ways to react to it besides that. So, roughly, failed attempt to impress with hardheaded materialism?
I regret my tone, since I was not aiming to shock. I think my own excitement and impressions of materialism, which I have only recently been introduced to, came out as a smug and pretentious. I am still impressed and shocked myself :) I am new here and I will hopefully get better at this. But still, I was trying to put an idea out there, which I see now I did so very poorly. I might as well get some practice and try to clarify:
Pain responds solely to stimuli and cannot be argued with. If your arm is severed, you could explain to your senses that you fully understand the implications of the injury and if your mind wasn’t pounding with unbearable pain that you could calm yourself and slow your heart rate and therefore increase your chances of survival, yet your screaming nerve endings wouldn’t give the slightest care. We know that pain lies deeper in the brain than language or reason. Pain is primitive. I don’t think I was positing that pain is ‘morally’ bad, just functionally stubborn. I guess that’s a different question. I’m stubborn too, it seems. Oh well, Thanks for humoring me! :)
Yes I very much agree pain can be excessive sometimes. I’d personally prefer that we get rid of it altogether and someday replace it with some system that’s more accurate and less affectively negative. Pain is quite primitive. And perhaps our increasing wield of technology is the way in which we take more control?
I didn’t actually downvote you myself, I had thought it was due to what I took as an implied suggestion that we get rid of our pleasures, or that they are a curse. I replied what I did because I find the argument, quite unconvincing, and had seen elsewhere people putting it forward. But perhaps you aren’t so much, and I was sadly biased from my prior experience.
I suppose you could say I’d like to overthrow all the overloads (or just the one as I see it), take the reins of my own affective destiny and all that, and you might also say that no such overlord is my proper pal. What I would say is that I’m extremely grateful to them for my enjoyment of sex and milkshakes, for:
Every interest we think we have, every sensation we believe we enjoy
I’d also say that I do have those interests and honestly do enjoy the sensations, regardless of the blind god that gave them to me, or why.
Oh noes, I has been down voted! :( I thought what I said made sense; too much bong-fueled nihilism, I suppose. Could someone please criticize me, I’d very much like some feedback concerning my errors (was that off-topic, was it written poorly, did I get something wrong?).
If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. FrankAdamek, which genetic overlords would you like to overthrow and which are your pals?
As far as pain being bad, I think it can be a little excessive sometimes. It would surely be nice if our negative sensations could work more cooperatively with our relatively new ability to use language and be rational. Give us a little more control when we can handle it, switch some of our bodies’ involuntary systems over from automatic to manual. This could have drawbacks, but if we could understand the purpose of these systems (specifically of pain, here) and then have the ability to regulate it in dire situations or when we are unable to react to it and it is merely torture, such as in terminally ill patients, who must instead be pumped up with morphine. That doesn’t make pain bad whatsoever, just a little primitive.
Nobody here disagrees with the factual history in your comment—that our brain circuitry is indeed the product of evolution. The moral interpretation you’re putting on top of it is questionable, and poorly supported in your comment… and, of course, a product of evolved brain circuitry. :)
You treat the history as news expected to shock us, with only one sufficiently hardheaded interpretation; actually it’s news that is very old to us, and there are many other ways to react to it besides that. So, roughly, failed attempt to impress with hardheaded materialism?
I regret my tone, since I was not aiming to shock. I think my own excitement and impressions of materialism, which I have only recently been introduced to, came out as a smug and pretentious. I am still impressed and shocked myself :) I am new here and I will hopefully get better at this. But still, I was trying to put an idea out there, which I see now I did so very poorly. I might as well get some practice and try to clarify:
Pain responds solely to stimuli and cannot be argued with. If your arm is severed, you could explain to your senses that you fully understand the implications of the injury and if your mind wasn’t pounding with unbearable pain that you could calm yourself and slow your heart rate and therefore increase your chances of survival, yet your screaming nerve endings wouldn’t give the slightest care. We know that pain lies deeper in the brain than language or reason. Pain is primitive. I don’t think I was positing that pain is ‘morally’ bad, just functionally stubborn. I guess that’s a different question. I’m stubborn too, it seems. Oh well, Thanks for humoring me! :)
Yes I very much agree pain can be excessive sometimes. I’d personally prefer that we get rid of it altogether and someday replace it with some system that’s more accurate and less affectively negative. Pain is quite primitive. And perhaps our increasing wield of technology is the way in which we take more control?
I didn’t actually downvote you myself, I had thought it was due to what I took as an implied suggestion that we get rid of our pleasures, or that they are a curse. I replied what I did because I find the argument, quite unconvincing, and had seen elsewhere people putting it forward. But perhaps you aren’t so much, and I was sadly biased from my prior experience.
I suppose you could say I’d like to overthrow all the overloads (or just the one as I see it), take the reins of my own affective destiny and all that, and you might also say that no such overlord is my proper pal. What I would say is that I’m extremely grateful to them for my enjoyment of sex and milkshakes, for:
I’d also say that I do have those interests and honestly do enjoy the sensations, regardless of the blind god that gave them to me, or why.
That’s the one.
Ouch, pitiless pith. Thanks for truth :)