(September 29, 2017 at 7:20 pm)Hammy Wrote:

(September 29, 2017 at 7:01 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: Yes, I understand.  Alright, so this means that if positive emotions were intrinsically good, we would not be able to decide other things and situations as being good or wise.  From here, my worldview/idea would say that the good value and beauty that comes about in our lives through having no positive emotions would be a no quality standard of good value and beauty.  It would still be good value and beauty, but it would be devoid of the light (positive emotions).   It would be like the words good value and beauty being lit up at the entrance to a dance club as opposed to those words being shut down (i.e. "dead").  Those words are still there, but they are "dead."

Okay fair enough. But it sounds to me that you are saying positive emotions are a necessary but not sufficient condition for a good life. Because positive emotions aren't enough without moderation and wisdom.

But you are also saying that the other values are useless without positive emotions.

Positive emotions can't be intrinsically good if they're not good enough in and of themselves though, TD. Because that's what intrinsically good means.

When I said that other values are "dead," then does that imply that they do not exist without our emotions?  I said that, during my worst miserable times, that even thoughts of good value were completely "dead" in my life.  So, is that implying that there is no good without positive emotions?  If so, then religious doctrines also make the claim that there is no good without god and, yet, people are still making choices to help themselves and others anyway.  I seriously wish to know how these religious doctrines address this seemingly contradiction.  Because, by having the answer, that might also address this contradiction my worldview has as well.

(September 29, 2017 at 6:15 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: Have you ever heard the saying that there is no good without god?  In that same sense, there is no good without positive emotions.  When a person without god in his life still makes a decision to save his own life or the life of someone else, then how does the religious doctrine address this?  I'm quite sure it would be the same answer here as well when it comes to positive emotions being the god in our lives.

There's also no good without negative emotions. Baby cries, pisses me off. I go feed baby so it will shut the fuck up. I'm not cooing at 3:00 am "Awwww look at his cute little red face. . . and OOH what great vocal chords he's got!" At times, there's just enough instinct there to prevent me from smothering my own offspring with a pillow.

But if I wasn't annoyed, I wouldn't get out of bed and feed the baby, and the problem would solve itself right quick. It is good that I get annoyed enough to do something about my baby's needs, because that allows baby to survive to grow up, learn to read, and respond to goofy hippy philosophies online.

I suspect that the OP doesn't have enough responsibility that his/her suffering matters much in contributing to a good goal. Without actual things that need to be done, then suffering is just heat that threatens to melt the snowflake, and there's no good to be found there. Anyone who utters the words "Transcended Dimensions" needs to step out of the drum circle for a while and find a way to participate in society a little more. Then you'll learn that suffering GETS THINGS DONE, and getting things done is good.

(September 29, 2017 at 7:33 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(September 29, 2017 at 6:15 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: Have you ever heard the saying that there is no good without god?  In that same sense, there is no good without positive emotions.  When a person without god in his life still makes a decision to save his own life or the life of someone else, then how does the religious doctrine address this?  I'm quite sure it would be the same answer here as well when it comes to positive emotions being the god in our lives.

There's also no good without negative emotions.  Baby cries, pisses me off.  I go feed baby so it will shut the fuck up.  I'm not cooing at 3:00 am "Awwww look at his cute little red face. . . and OOH what great vocal chords he's got!"  At times, there's just enough instinct there to prevent me from smothering my own offspring with a pillow.

But if I wasn't annoyed, I wouldn't get out of bed and feed the baby, and the problem would solve itself right quick.  It is good that I get annoyed enough to do something about my baby's needs, because that allows baby to survive to grow up, learn to read, and respond to goofy hippy philosophies online.

I suspect that the OP doesn't have enough responsibility that his/her suffering matters much in contributing to a good goal.  Without actual things that need to be done, then suffering is just heat that threatens to melt the snowflake, and there's no good to be found there.

You are jumping to conclusions such as that I am speaking nonsense, making contradictions, etc.  If you read my entire discussion, then you would have more insight into my worldview.  I just don't like it when people just jump to conclusions about me and my worldview rather than taking the time to thoroughly look it over.

(September 29, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: You are jumping to conclusions such as that I am speaking nonsense, making contradictions, etc.  If you read my entire discussion, then you would have more insight into my worldview.  I just don't like it when people just jump to conclusions about me and my worldview rather than taking the time to thoroughly look it over.

I'm not jumping to the conclusion that you are speaking nonsense. We are now like 15 pages into this thread, and I've attempted to address the (pretty simple) semantics of applying objective terms to subjective experiences. So I've slowly, and with due diligence, arrived at the conclusion that you are speaking nonsense.

If you think that displeasure is intrinsically bad, then that means you value feelings more than results, since it's been pointed out to you that negative feelings lead to good results, and that the negative feelings are therefore in fact good.

It is for this reason that I have inferred that you don't have real-life goals which matter much. When I have stress at work, I bust my ass, I solve problems, I get my job done, and I feed my family. I fucking hate the feeling of stress, but I'm glad that my children are healthy and well-fed. When I was 20 on welfare, and my most difficult task was remembering to return books to the library on time, stress was largely self-inflicted: this girl doesn't like me after all, that dude keeps beating me at chess-- there just wasn't enough value in the negative motivation. So I'd meditate my suffering away, and trip my way down Main Street with a twinkle in my eye.

But now I have a life.

(September 29, 2017 at 7:43 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(September 29, 2017 at 7:36 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: You are jumping to conclusions such as that I am speaking nonsense, making contradictions, etc.  If you read my entire discussion, then you would have more insight into my worldview.  I just don't like it when people just jump to conclusions about me and my worldview rather than taking the time to thoroughly look it over.

I'm not jumping to the conclusion that you are speaking nonsense.  We are now like 15 pages into this thread, and I've attempted to address the (pretty simple) semantics of applying objective terms to subjective experiences.  So I've slowly, and with due diligence, arrived at the conclusion that you are speaking nonsense.

If you think that displeasure is intrinsically bad, then that means you value feelings more than results, since it's been pointed out to you that negative feelings lead to good results, and that the negative feelings are therefore in fact good.

It is for this reason that I have inferred that you don't have real-life goals which matter much.  When I have stress at work, I bust my ass, I solve problems, I get my job done, and I feed my family.  I fucking hate the feeling of stress, but I'm glad that my children are healthy and well-fed.  When I was 20 on welfare, and my most difficult task was remembering to return books to the library on time, stress was largely self-inflicted: this girl doesn't like me after all, that dude keeps beating me at chess-- there just wasn't enough value in the negative motivation.  So I'd meditate my suffering away, and trip my way down Main Street with a twinkle in my eye.

But now I have a life.

But the reason why I have said to not jump to the conclusion that I am speaking nonsense is because I am still in the process of figuring out and working out my whole worldview so that it becomes clear to others.  You are also dismissing my personal experience.  During my worst miserable moments, I have thought that the idea of getting the help I needed was something good, but that goodness was completely empty in my life.  I was still living the worst life.  This has to prove that goodness goes beyond our thoughts.  It has to be the positive emotions themselves.  I am still in the process of working and figuring this one out, too because, if positive emotions were the only things that were good in life, then we wouldn't be able to judge other things we didn't feel a positive emotion from as being good in the first place.

(September 29, 2017 at 5:38 pm)Hammy Wrote: If your happiness is intense enough to make the suffering worth it then that's not really suffering. Suffering is when pain or unhappiness becomes bad enough... that you're suffering. It's when the pain is by definition NOT worth it. Which is why I say it's intrinsically bad.

There's a time lag, though.  In many cases, it is the suffering which motivates one to experience pleasure.  And given how the brain works, even the cessation of suffering can be pleasurable.  Is it worth a couple days of blue balls to have a mind-numbing orgasm, and impress my wife with a volcanic eruption like to pop her little head off?  Bennyboy says yes!

As for intrinsically bad. . . nope.  Offer the pain up to God.  Use it as a philosophical tool for understanding the plight of man.  Use it as an excuse to complain, which is many people's favorite hobby.  Even pain offers plenty of chance for positive attribution.

We can argue about whether pain is "worth it," but what are the criteria?  They are necessarily SUBJECTIVE, which means the badness is not in the thing itself, but in the attributions we arbitrarily apply to it.

Not. . . intrinsic. . .

---

(September 29, 2017 at 7:49 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: But the reason why I have said to not jump to the conclusion that I am speaking nonsense is because I am still in the process of figuring out and working out my whole worldview so that it becomes clear to others.  You are also dismissing my personal experience.  During my worst miserable moments, I have thought that the idea of getting the help I needed was something good, but that goodness was completely empty in my life.  I was still living the worst life.  This has to prove that goodness goes beyond our thoughts.  It has to be the positive emotions themselves.  I am still in the process of working and figuring this one out, too because, if positive emotions were the only things that were good in life, then we wouldn't be able to judge other things we didn't feel a positive emotion from as being good in the first place.

You are busily engaged in debating a point which you have not you finished the "process of figuring out," and you expect us to make sense of it? That expectation is intrinsically bad.

I'm all for spiritual and philosophical exploration. Rock it, talk about it, live it. Not a problem. But I happen to care what words mean, and intrinsic doesn't mean, "Bad because I think it's bad." It means the opposite of that.

Have we got anywhere close to a punchline yet?

(September 29, 2017 at 7:10 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote:

(September 29, 2017 at 7:04 pm)Khemikal Wrote: This statement is inconsistent with your previous contention that there could be emotional good, and good of thought.  If they are separate things, and can exist independent and even in contradiction with each other....then good without positive emotion is not only a possibility, but a an inevitability.

Amusingly, examples are easy to find.  I know it's good to flush the toilet, but doing it doesn't make me euphoric.  You manage to contradict yourself and reality in a single breath.  Bravo.

Then read my recent posts to know what I mean here.  I first had a conversation where I said that positive emotions really are the only good and that we can't have good thoughts and that situations can't be good.  I then later said that there is good without positive emotions, but that it would be like the words at the entrance to a club being shut down (i.e. "dead").  It would be a no quality standard of goodness in your life.  I am still in the process of trying to work out this whole worldview so that it is clear to others.  So, don't just jump to the conclusion that I am speaking nonsense, making contradictions, and then end your discussion with me.

Excellent, then use my remarks as a means of improving the message?  Making contradictory proclamations -is- speaking nonsense.  Rather than complain about the recipient recognizing nonsense, perhaps you should find some other..less nonsensical way to communicate whatever it is you're trying to say?

You still haven't given anyone a reason to think that emotions and thoughts are separate categories in the first place, and you're asserting that while there may be more than one kind of good, one of the kinds of good is somehow uniformly gooder than the other kind of good. So much sop, that it makes no sense to call them both good, and that only your selected good truly qualifies for the moniker.

Is this your emotional value judgement, or a thoughtful appraisal? Does the satisfaction that a sex offender feels count as an emotional good? Is it a "gooder good" than, say, knowing that sex offense is wrong?

(September 30, 2017 at 10:24 am)Khemikal Wrote: Is this your emotional value judgement, or a thoughtful appraisal?  Does the satisfaction that a sex offender feels count as an emotional good?  Is it a "gooder good" than, say, knowing that sex offense is wrong?

Maybe, since feelings are intrinsically good or bad, the victim should not have negative feelings about it. Then every sexual offense will be nothing but net!

(September 29, 2017 at 7:30 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote:

(September 29, 2017 at 7:20 pm)Hammy Wrote: Okay fair enough. But it sounds to me that you are saying positive emotions are a necessary but not sufficient condition for a good life. Because positive emotions aren't enough without moderation and wisdom.

But you are also saying that the other values are useless without positive emotions.

Positive emotions can't be intrinsically good if they're not good enough in and of themselves though, TD. Because that's what intrinsically good means.

When I said that other values are "dead," then does that imply that they do not exist without our emotions?  I said that, during my worst miserable times, that even thoughts of good value were completely "dead" in my life.  So, is that implying that there is no good without positive emotions?  If so, then religious doctrines also make the claim that there is no good without god and, yet, people are still making choices to help themselves and others anyway.  I seriously wish to know how these religious doctrines address this seemingly contradiction.  Because, by having the answer, that might also address this contradiction my worldview has as well.

Okay well we can continue our debate when you start being relevant and actually addressing my points. You still haven't answered my argument yet.