X-Message-Number: 12339 From: Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:22:33 EDT Subject: Pleasure I usually just lurk, but I have to comment on this one, because I was thinking about it just the other day on two of the highest of all places... public transportation and also "the facility"... Without engaging in word play, I think the whole concept of "the pursuit of purpose" needs to be examined. If you say, "The purpose of life is to pursue the purpose of life," you have to then ask "Why?" and it will eventually come back to realizing that apparently this is one of those strange quirks about being human - - apparently, we take pleasure in it, and in doing so maximize our chances of survival. Just as the pursuit of "libidinal" pleasure got our species to reproduce, the pursuit of "intellectual" and existential pressure got us to pursue science and technology. (It would seem to me, we'd have to be very careful in altering either, or humanity might still have the "philosophical" will to live, but not the drive to do things to enable thus. - - Anyway, it seems to me are the same primitive but functional drives, not higher or lower. Now, here's my question - - at present, our "instincts" (in the mind sense) impose upon us what gives us our "kicks" - - Could a human being, potentially in the future have what gives him meaning and happiness programmed into or out of him and what such a process warrent "meaning in life" - - example : The reason I personal look forward to waking up every morning is to play my musical instrument. Let's say one day I wake up, I feel I've reached a plateau, get frustrated and bored, and the sense of well being it gives me goes away and I start asking "What's it all for ?" - - Rather than taking an anti-depressant or killing myself, I take up the hobby of going to book stores and reading books on existentialism, and suddenly that gives me pleasure, until that bores me and I take up financial investing or something. Well, suddenly we find out, pleasure is really a sensation we get by going where the mind wants us to go... and why.... because our minds apparently have a need to take in and process new stuff in order for us to survive.... But it only leads us back to the first question... WHY ? EXPERIMENT : Could a person achieve eternal happiness by simply programming the brain to put him into ecstatic hysterics (emotional reaction linked with experience) simply by watching water boil - - and in doing so would such an eternal life be justified ? Pleasure afterall, ultimately is a physical reaction to stimuli... what would be so hard about this ? Or in the pursuit of happiness, would it be better for us to develope a "perplexity drive" - - an existential to do list that's more efficient at generating tasks of purpose for us to give us pleasure. (Our current drive goes down at times, causing lot's of depressed down time searching for what we're searching for !) Such a solution would maximize pleasure, because why would a guy who's naturally high as a kite over watching water boil want to save the universe ? - - And finally, in the meantime, rather than saying we have to "existentially" justify the will to live, why not simply view it as a healthy drive or useful pathology - - the essence of being human, taken a step further. Ed Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12339