Pleasure and Happiness

@Holiday20310401,

I prefer pleasure. Happiness seems to be a by-product, unattainable by direct means. Pleasure can be sought after on the other hand.

Ya follow me?

1 Reply

@Holiday20310401,

0 Replies

@Corksil,

Corksil wrote:

I prefer pleasure. Happiness seems to be a by-product, unattainable by direct means. Pleasure can be sought after on the other hand.

Ya follow me?

Oh yes, quite well. I noticed in reading another post that pleasure and happiness were not only different but they were kinda at different 'levels' sort-to-speak.

Pleasure sounds like it can be addictive, and happiness cannot be. Pleasure coming from competition and happiness from cooperation, I don't know yet. Just wanting to hear ideas on the whole theme first.

0 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Which do people prefer, pleasure or happiness?

Hi Holiday, Smile

Pleasure is happyness, accordding to Spinoza there is only desire, which I would consider a yearning for a given object/circumstance, plus pain and pleasure. There is further modivication or the defining of the emotion by its relation to a particular object, in other words the object concerned defines the type of emotion under the said catagories of pain and pleasure, love and hate are pleasure and pain, respective. Spinoza's Improvement of the understanding is outstanding!!! The interesting thing to, is that pain hinders the innate effort to existence while pleasure inhances that power.:a-thought:

1 Reply

@boagie,

What book does Spinoza talk about this?

Speaking as if there's no emotion, but only desire is really interesting. If only pleasure, it just seems sort of lifeless though.

0 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Many say that if one lives a life of true happiness, lasting pleasure will follow.

I do not necessarily know if I agree with that statement.

1 Reply

@hammersklavier,

We'd have to pin down the terms "pleasure" and "happiness" before the question can be answered.

1 Reply

@Didymos Thomas,

By the very sense of the words, happiness 'must' be pleasurable; although if the OP intends to mean hedonist pleasure (for example sexual stimulation), then I would look no further than the Karma Sutra and it's relevant imaginations.

1 Reply

@Doobah47,

It seems to me that pleasure and emotion are mutually exclusive. Pleasure is always the desire (ideally), and emotion is the categorical description one attains from whatever the result is of attempting to fulfill the pleasure.

Let's say a person gets pleasure from money, yet the pleasure is indifferent to the emotional result. Pleasure does not mean happiness. Pleasure can result in any emotion, resulting in certain other pleasures for certain resultant reactions, like suicide.

If one owns a TV, it is out of the pleasure attained from it, not out of any absolute desired emotion. There can be preferred emotions, but this is out of personality perhaps? Chemical conditions? Is there an ideal state in which we recognize happiness as above sadness. Or is there in the ideal bodily state, an absolute preferred emotion?

2 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Let's say a person gets pleasure from money, yet the pleasure is indifferent to the emotional result. Pleasure does not mean happiness. Pleasure can result in any emotion, resulting in certain other pleasures for certain resultant reactions, like suicide...

...Or is there in the ideal bodily state, an absolute preferred emotion?

I agree, some seratonin/dopamine stimulation can be very dangerous for the emotional stability and psyche of the individual - especially MDMA/ecstacy consumption... who knows what madness might lurk in relevant bi-polar/manic 'disorders'...

I would say that the ideal bodily state is sexually satisfied and full-bellied sleep whilst in the company of a loving/loved partner.

1 Reply

@Doobah47,

, can't be called an ideal though. I mean an ideal emotional state through the ideal chemical state. One cannot have perfectly, the ideal chemical state, I'm assuming, whatever that means I suppose, and since external stimuli is never constant, one cannot imply absolutely a particular emotion to a particular pleasure.

0 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401;44777 wrote:

It seems to me that pleasure and emotion are mutually exclusive. Pleasure is always the desire (ideally), and emotion is the categorical description one attains from whatever the result is of attempting to fulfill the pleasure.

Let's say a person gets pleasure from money, yet the pleasure is indifferent to the emotional result. Pleasure does not mean happiness. Pleasure can result in any emotion, resulting in certain other pleasures for certain resultant reactions, like suicide.

If one owns a TV, it is out of the pleasure attained from it, not out of any absolute desired emotion. There can be preferred emotions, but this is out of personality perhaps? Chemical conditions? Is there an ideal state in which we recognize happiness as above sadness. Or is there in the ideal bodily state, an absolute preferred emotion?

I have a problem with the term desire, has there been any accurate description of what it is, and how it is different from emotion. I've read many Freudian depictions but I don't buy into them.

I see the distinction between pleasure and happiness as being on some level a distinction between mind satisfaction and body satisfaction. Pleasure is a condition that is interpreted by sense data, and as such is a more immediate sense of wellbeing and one might say a more intense one.
Whilst happiness is entirely a condition of the mind, a conscious recognition that you are achieving one of your goals. I would also have thought that happiness is not something to be achieved without experience, it implies intuition as one needs to be able to draw upon the experience of unhappiness to affirm that they are happy and one can never be sure until they have lived a little, of course that is not a necessary distinction.

0 Replies

Pleasure and Happiness

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know