Zeraph

I was thinking we could come up with more words for feelings and I decided to think about pain and in effect pleasure because of its seemingly false face.

By that I mean that pleasure and pain normally seem like a dichotomy, but I think it's a continous scale, or maybe not even that and not even a scale at all. Maybe there's just one or the other, if there's only pain, then less pain would seem like pleasure. How can we tell?

Off the top of my head I can think of several different kinds of pain, all distinct from each other. One is the type of pain you get with a headache, which is much different than a "sharp" pain from getting cut. One that seems even more different is the type of pain you get when you are normally active, but have been unable to exercise recently, and then the pain of exercising itself that still feels good in some way and then again after that, the pain of exhaustion where your joints and muscles ache but it feels so good.

A really really funny moment or joke can almost be described as a pain as well considering you feel the need to (laugh) repeatedly bellow until youre gasping for air, something that would be more akin to choking. You want to laugh so bad it hurts.

Or what about the pain that comes when you love someone so much?

Could pain and pleasure be the same, just in slightly different masks? Or are they completly seperate and not even on the same scale, both equally necessary for happiness?

If all of life is pain, how could we tell if we have no base to compare non pain to? What about other emotions like fear and anger? Can those be reduced to a certain type of pain? Can we reduce all of life's emotions to one thing...either lack of pain and pain, or pleasure and lack of pleasure? Do we need more words for unique emotions or less words to see the truth, that we really only feel one thing and it only varies in intensity?

For instance, perhaps all those emotions not normally directly associated with pain or pleasure are really cognitive devices that produce behavior. So you feel pain in one situation and become angry because the circumstances trigger a primal response that is what we think of as anger. But really you are just feeling pain in the category of anger which could just as easily be fear except for the situation.

Mantus

Another example is the same event being percieved as pleasure and pain by two different people.

Whenever we are influenced by something we give a responce.

Our concious mind has a rather limited say in this process. The reflexes, endorphins, homones, blood preasure, breathing, brain functions are all out of our control. Emotions are also a part of our natural responce mechanism.

I think emotions are nature's controls on our otherwise free concious mind. Focusing our minds on what we judge to be important. Prety hard to think about tommorows board meeting when you feel the pain of something crushing your foot. The anger in you prepares you for a possible upcomming confrontation in case you were assaulted.

Now we know the difference between pain of being crushed, squeezed, stabbed, pinched or having our ego's bruised. These are all necissary to fine tune our responce. Would be pretty silly to respond to a harsh word the same way you would respond to a punch. Thought there are similarities and this is why we would classify both as pain.

Conciously, pain is something you move away from and pleasure is something you strive to attain. This is a very natural self preservation device.

So, the mechanism for pleasure and pain are obviously the same however the total body reactions are very differnt.

Knowing this I think we can experience pleasure or pain if the other did not exist. Even though I did think otherwise about a year ago. I think that if you took your brain and body and removed all ability to experience either pain or pleasure your cognitive process would collapse. However a mind which never felt one but feels the other would probably feel right at home.

Those are my thought's.

Cheers.

Seeker

Hey Zaraph... great post!

When I reflect on all the different types of pain I've experienced just over the last six months I really see your point, especially in relation to anger and fear.

My take is that emotional pain is definitely a cognitive device that produces behaviour. As Mantus points out (but adding my take on it), I see behaviour as bringing our sub-conscious focuses into physical reality to show us what we judge to be important. In that light, even when we are experiencing conflict or pain, we can use that to get to the bottom of underlying or sub-conscious processes that may be colliding with one another, creating conflict.

I'd almost agree with you when you say that we could reduce all emotions to the one thing... either lack of pain and pain. The only place you really have me is when you refer to the pain of loving someone so much. Although that can be an overwhelming feeling (like you want to burst), I would also look at it from the angle of something like, What am I feeling that's outside of me that I can't feel on my own? But then again, perhaps the feeling of being totally in no pain can be in itself a painfully felt expression of bliss?

I don't know, but what a great concept to chew over... thank you!

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duckznutz

Pleasure is simply absence of pain or discomfort. Its the perfect state we all strive to reach without realising that the pleasure cannot be 'enjoyed' if the pain does not precede it . . . . . so they exist in a balance. The pleasurable highlight of the week for a man in jail will be enjoyed just as much as the pleasurable highlight of the week for a millionaire reclining by the pool. We all experience the same range of human pleasure and pain regardless of our actual position in life. Does a fat ugly woman have a lesser orgasm than a fit and gorgeous one? Good topic!

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Cardenal

I don't know what the policy is on quoting authors, etc, but...
You guys reek of Schopenhauer. I've never been a big fan of pessimistic thought such as absence of pain is pleasure, there is no true happiness, only lack of sadness simply because I feel happiness. I do not feel an illusion. The basis for any productive philosophical argument sits on trusting that (ok, not really, but how practical is pure rationalism, really?). Drawing from science for a moment, all those chemicals in our brain that correspond to happiness and sadness exist representative of those emotions. As far as I know, happiness is not the absence of the sad brain fluid.

If someone is drugged with increasing amounts of dopamine their entire lives, are they not eternally happy?

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I know nothing, but I'm pretty sure I dislike extremes. Hence, its more appropriate to say I know very little. I will doubt everything until I reach truth. Until then, nothing to me will be fact. If I challenge what you believe to be obvious, please understand I'm just helping the both of us learn.

archpaladin

Basically true, but on a mental/philosophic side I feel this is somewhat irrelevant. We are only capable of describing something in terms of what it isn't, because our language defines attributes as a large set of mutually opposing constructs. If you eliminate one side of a continuum, then the new end point becomes the point that you chose to cut off from.

This raises the point that I think Mantus made. If you get rid of the ability to feel pain, does that mean that you can no longer define both pain and pleasure, or does that mean you can still define pleasure even though you don't know pain?

Incidently, some people are actually born with a congenital defect that keeps them from feeling any sensation of pain (in about five minutes of Google searching, I couldn't find the name of this disorder, though I did stumble upon alifewithoutpain.com). You might think this is really cool, but it actually turns out to be extremely dangerous because those affected have no idea that when they should stop doing something to themselves.

Considering that this kind of defect exists, I imagine that it is possible to know pleasure without knowing pain. However, I imagine that their definition of pleasure is very different than what we define pleasure to be, since our abilities to feel pain and pleasure are intricately connected. If you get rid of one, the other still exists, but it's not the same as it was before.

Well technically they're dead, but I think we know what you meant.

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Tachion

Pleasure and pain are not related and therefore are not an either/or, though they may seem to be at first.
The only way they are similar is that they are both subjective.

For example there are some that feel pleasure from pain.

It is important to understand the power you can have when you realize that the pain or pleasure your are dealing with is your choice!

You decide what to focus on, how to interpret it and how to react to it.

A needle stuck in your arm can make you feel pain, have no sensation, make you feel pleasure or make you sexually aroused. The reality is in your mind - no where else.

So is the cup half empty, half full, both or is there no glass at all.

Typing this is giving me a headache. Man is that turning me on!