The sliding scale of pain and pleasure

Well, it's xmas morning, and as usual, I'm awake before anyone else. who wants to play philosophy?! I tried a thread sort of like this a while ago, but it was sort of tucked away in support. It might have more luck here.

In the obligation thread, jamshyd asked whether people think that pain and pleasure are separate entities which might sometimes overlap, or whether they were opposite ends of a sliding scale. the majority of posters in the thread (I think everyone, actually) agreed that pain and pleasure are opposite ends on a sliding scale.

I suppose my first question would be: do you agree with this? i personally have a difficult time conceiving of pain/pleasure in any other way, but I am open to hearing arguments to the contrary.

My second question is more about the implications that believing that pain and pleasure are on a sliding scale has on the harm-reduction mantra of this website. If we believe that pain and pleasure are for all intents and purposes the same, why is it not 'harm reduction' to help people get the most out of their drugs (e.g. MOD: "bluelight is not here to help you get higher")? If you believe in the sliding scale, a lost opportunity to experience great pleasure is just as 'harmful' as suffering 'harm.'

So 'harm reduction.' How is it justified in this context? Is it the belief that teaching people how to get higher will overall end up harming them more in the long run? is it the belief that not having it will result in the end of bluelight from law enforcement? do admins not believe in the pain/pleasure sliding scale?

sounds to me like you don't buy into the sliding scale at all.

the sex example is interesting. it brings out a flaw in way I proposed the sliding scale. it should have been a sliding scale between pleasure and harm, not pleasure and pain.

you seem to believe in a harm-reduction utilitarian-style calculus to justify the harm reduction policy. so if it could be shown that teaching people how to get high would actually be better overall in terms of the sliding scale, would your vote go towards changing the policy?

I don't think the spectrum holds up as it stands. It doesn't account for the depth of human experience. What kind of pleasure and pain are we talking about? Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual? Pain on one level of experience can translate to pleasure on another( as Jamshyd pointed out ). Throw in the concept of suffering and things get even more complex. Pain doesn't always translate into suffering, and pleasure is often the source suffering( e.g love ).

I think there is a spectrum, but it's not 1-dimensional line. It's a 2-dimensional graph.

Jamshyd said:

As someone who is fundamentally apophatic, I am more interested in the lack of pain rather than pleasure per-se. To put it in a utilitarian context, the goal is to minimize pain, rather than necessarily maximize pleasure. Even if something is not especially pleasurable, it is more importantly not painful.

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Hmmm...

Do you place any intrinsic positive value on pleasure, though (as you place intrinsic negative value on pain)? Would a universe with no pain and no pleasure be equally "valuable" as one lacking pain but abundant in pleasure?

If so, then supposedly one negates the other at some level - and therefore the 'universal goal' would be to maximize the end result after negation (highest pleasure/pain ratio?).

I think there is a place (actually i know, i've been there) where pain, suffering and even terror meet with joy, pleasure and bliss and they are not separate. Where even the worst horror is simultaneously tremendous delight.

You're capacity to feel pain is your capacity to feel joy.

I feel that the two are separate entities that can be experienced alone or in conjunction with each other. In my line of work, it is not uncommon to hurt myself in small ways (I'm a cook, so that entails small burns and cuts, usually to my fingers/hands). Occasionally, a flood of orders come at me at once. It is difficult to perform when this happens, but I perform better (to a point) when this happens. It pleases me to see things completed, but it can't happen unless I receive the orders in the first place.

Things go wrong and I get angry. However that anger drives me to do more, which makes me produce more quickly, which makes me happy. Yelling at others on the line becomes fun.

Both pleasure and pain can arrive from the same stimulus. Sometimes the pain produces the pleasure. Think of the "runner's high". It is only from that pain can one receive the pleasure. I enjoy pushing my limits on spicy food, like eating raw habaneros. I don't do this often because the pain does outweigh the pleasure at times, but the rush, when it hits, reminds me of why I like hot peppers.

For the "harm reduction" aspect of this question, I don't believe that increasing pleasure can be matched with reducing harm. Let's say that I get no greater joy than to get blackout drunk and then joy ride in my car. I can learn all of the tricks on how to avoid getting caught while driving wasted, but I am still harming myself and presenting a risk for harm to others. Is it helpful to give this person information on ways to further enjoy this activity (increasing pleasure and increasing potential for harm) or is it more helpful to prevent this person from driving while blackout drunk (reducing pleasure but preventing harm)

I don't think the spectrum holds up as it stands. It doesn't account for the depth of human experience. What kind of pleasure and pain are we talking about?

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My opinion is something like this. There are numerous, qualitatively unique pains and pleasures that we feel from time to time...they may be grouped and approached as a single spectrum, or a small set of spectra, but this is an oversimplification...like all cognitive operations.

ebola

please elaborate a bit on the unique pains and pleasures. Mill tried to do something similar by saying that there are higher and lower pleasures, but I think he was confused. I mean, if you like something, it is pleasurable. point finale. Why draw a distinction between intellectual pleasures and physical ones (e.g.). IMO it is really impossible to separate the two. So many 'physical' pleasures (e.g. sex) have 'intellectual' aspects to them, and vice versa. can you really draw a distinct line between the different types? trying to draw the distinction starts to get you into some pretty heavy duty dualism too (not that everyone will see this as a problem).

toast, you're right that there in no absolute line you can draw between the physical and the mental, they are inextricably linked. But at the same time, we can do it. Sure it does create a shit ton of dualities that are ultimately illusionary, but it sure does help when discussing the nature of things and their individuated properties. Dualisms are inherent to human distinctions and conceptions.

please elaborate a bit on the unique pains and pleasures.

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My idea here is that, for example, a tooth ache is not directly comparable to a sore leg. Sure, some equivalent aspects may be drawn out for comparison, and sure, prior experience colors the present, but the mental spectrum of pain obscures numerous details.

BUT while there are infinitely many pains, at the same time, it's all pain or pleasure...so yes, I agree that a hierarchy of pains and/or pleasure is silly.

ebola

I think a hierarchy of pleasure and pain is perfectly reasonable, if not necessary. How are we going to make decisions without making evaluations of relative pain/pleasure values? If you can't make a hierarchical distinction between the pain values of stubbing your toe and loosing an arm, well you're not going to make it very far. If you can make a hierarchical distinction between the pleasures of masturbation, sex with a partner you love, and samadhi, well your life likely won't be very pleasurable.

so ebola?, if I read you correctly, you believe in an epistemological distinction between a sore leg and a toothache, but not and ontological one, right? i'm not sure if I agree with that either, but compared with the ontological distinction, we are essentially on the same page (well, the top and the bottom of the same page).

shakti: you don't make a hierarchy between the different types of pain, you make a hierarchy of the magnitude. e.g. stubbing your toe = -1 point of harm/pain vs. losing and arm being 100 points of harm/pain. sex would be say 25 points of pleasure vs. masturbating being say 10. the point is that they all go along the same scale or are measured in the same units, e.g. there is no difference in KIND between the harm of losing an arm and the pleasure from having sex. they are both adding to and subtracting from the same pile, so to speak.

I think there is a difference in KIND and type, etc. We all know there are differences in the qualities of these pleasures and pains and the ramifications of them. You stub your toe, you feel pain for a brief period. You lose an arm, your life is significantly altered irrevocably. That is a much different kind of pain. You jerk it, you feel brief pleasure. You have sex with a partner you love, and you start planning a life together. These pleasures are of different kind.

You could reduce the organizations of these pleasure pain indices to a simple order of magnitudes (measurable by neurons firing perhaps) if they happened in a vacuum. However, there is context, there are ramifications beyond the immediate. To simplify it as you are is an act of tremendous gross reductionism.

you have said that you think they are different in kind. you have given examples. the logical third step here would be to explain why you think these examples show that they are different in kind.

Hmm, I thought I did, but I'm happy to elaborate. It is in their broader ramifications. It's even in how our mental seeking structures organize and prioritize our goals and aversions. We will bear and tolerate smaller pains to avoid larger pains. Just as we will sacrifice smaller pleasures for access to higher pleasures. This has a large effect on our decision making. So it has a large effect on how we build and structure our lives. If we choose to accept certain pains we can manifest our lives in better ways.

We can talk about pain and pleasure in terms of magnitude, but I don't think that's the whole picture. Nor is what I'm presenting, but I think it's also a valuable perspective.

you're falling into the naturalistic fallacy. I agree that we DO categorize pleasure and structure our goals a certain way, i.e. with higher and lower pleasures. but that is not evidence for the fact the we OUGHT to do so.

Explain this naturalistic fallacy. I don't think I am, but feel free to explain it. I think its funny that you're now arguing that we should all now stop creating hierarchies of pleasure and pain. Why? Is it some how better to do so? Would it lead to greater pleasure? or less pain? What's the value in it?

Interestingly enough, to try and argue your point is a performative contradiction. How can you say we ought not do this without creating a hierarchy of it being better not to do it?

Yes, we had ought to. How are we going to arrange our lives if we don't? How are we going to know what really matters, if we don't? If we don't realize that there are higher potential manifestations for ourselves, why would we ever grow up? Why would we strive for any thing? If we can't say some shit is better than other shit, how do we make any decisions?

You're gonna have a hard time arguing this one with me.

Naturalistic Fallacy

And I am doing exactly what you accuse me of doing. Arguing that there is no hierarchy of pleasures and pains. and I am saying that it is indeed better to conceive of them all on a sliding scale. doing so allows us to embrace an ethical framework such as utilitarianism, which directs us to maximize overall happiness.

anyway, I think you are missing something, or perhaps not reading my posts. sex > masturbation, because sex = 25 pleasure points and masturbation = 10 pleasure points. Right? so we can compare the two and rate them against each insofar as one produces more pleasure than the other. but the kind of pleasure they produce (not the magnitude, the KIND) is the same. my argument is that all pleasures are of the same kind, be they sexual, intellectual or whatever (but not the same magnitude).

i'm not sure that I can make this any clearer than that.

Well, i don't think my argument fits into the naturalistic fallacy. My argument is, is and what the fuck ya going to do about it, not, is therefore ought. Thanks for the link though.

So you think that conceiving of pleasure and pain this way will lead to a new higher manifestation of ethical frameworks which create higher pleasure. This is a pleasure hierarchy. I'm not sure that I can make this any clearer than that.

I hope you now see the inescapability of hierarchies of desire. How are you going to escape them without creating a new one?

Pleasures, they are all similar, but you have named different types. All of the specific instances have differences to them. There is an underlying thread to them sure, but I don't see the value in collapsing them to "being all the same." Feeling good can come in many forms, just because we conceive of them all as "pleasure," doesn't make them indistinguishable. What is the value in not honoring their uniqueness?