Logical argument (hedonism)

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I will present to you a brief logical argument that summarizes my hedonistic view:

1.) Having good value and worth in your life is dependent upon a good quality of experience. This is because if you were to live a life that has much good value and worth to you, then that state of living (state of mind) you would be in would be an experience that has much good quality for you.

2.) Having bad value in your life is dependent upon a bad quality of experience. This is because if you were to live a life that has the most horrible value to you, then that state of living (state of mind) you would be in would be an experience that has the worst quality for you.

3.) Having no value in your life is dependent upon an experience that has no quality. This is because if you were to live a life that has no value and no worth to you, then that state of living (state of mind) you would be in would be an experience that has no quality to you.

4.) My good (pleasant) feelings are the only experiences that have good quality for me, my bad (unpleasant) feelings are the only experiences that have bad quality for me (depression/misery, in particular, have the absolute worst quality of experience for me), and having neither good nor bad feelings has no quality of experience for me. No attitude and no way of thinking alone has any quality of experience for me. It is only my feelings (moods) that dictate what type of quality of experience I have.

Therefore,

Conclusion: My good feelings are the only things that can give my life good value and worth, my bad feelings are the only things that can give my life bad value, and having neither good nor bad feelings is the only thing that can give my life no value and no worth.

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There is Logic to goodness, not goodness for logic.

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@MozartLink,

I think this is the fifth or sixth thread you have created peddling this idea. Who are you trying to convince?

I can toss everything you said in the trash bin with a simple example.

Good things can come out of a miserable experience.

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@Krumple,

No, you cannot. This is because our good feelings alone, in of themselves, always have a good quality of experience for us regardless of our personal value judgments. In other words, having a good or bad quality of experience in your life is not a matter of personal value judgment. Rather, the experience is what it is. It either has good quality in of itself, bad quality, or no quality.

Since it is only our good feelings that have the good quality of experience for us and since having good value and worth in our lives is always a good quality of experience for us, then it can only be our good feelings that give our lives good value and worth.

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@MozartLink,

MozartLink wrote:

No, you cannot. This is because our good feelings alone, in of themselves, always have a good quality of experience for us regardless of our personal value judgments. In other words, having a good or bad quality of experience in your life is not a matter of personal value judgment. Rather, the experience is what it is. It either has good quality in of itself, bad quality, or no quality.

Since it is only our good feelings that have the good quality of experience for us and since having good value and worth in our lives is always a good quality of experience for us, then it can only be our good feelings that give our lives good value and worth.

Sounds like a really depressing way to live.

How was it determined if these value judgements weren't developed within personal value?

You mean it's just automatically known? Doubtful. But I also object. Emotions don't arise spontaneously without a cause. This means if the condition isn't present the emotion can not arise. I say this of itself is a drawback to all emotions including love, happiness, joy, ect.

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@Krumple,

When you are about to feel good from a certain thing or situation, then that situation or thing has no good value or worth to you as of yet. But the moment you feel good from that is the moment where that situation or thing is perceived as having good value and worth to you since our good feelings are what allow us to perceive good value and worth in our lives according to my logical argument. This same concept would also apply to love, joy, happiness, beauty, misery, suffering, etc. since these things would also only be our good and bad feelings as well.

It is through paying attention to the experiences (feelings) themselves that one would realize that they alone, in of themselves, possess the experiential quality of bringing our lives good and bad value. This is different than looking at these feelings and applying a value judgment to them.

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@MozartLink,

If you shot yourself in the foot you WILL have a painful bad experience.
This is a value judgement.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

No, it is actually not. Actually, if you used your personal value judgment (thinking) and judged the painful experience to be bad, then that would be the value judgment. But the pain in of itself giving bad value to your life is not a value judgment here. Our value judgments are completely irrelevant here because even if you judged the painful experience to be good, then it would still not bring your life any good value or worth because it is the painful experience in of itself that brings your life bad value regardless of your personal judgments.

Good and bad would, therefore, not be labels (judgments) we apply to certain things and situations. Rather, they are the feelings themselves. These feelings are what make certain things or situations in our lives good or bad to us regardless of our personal judgments.

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@MozartLink,

Value judgements are not arbitrary. An accessment of risk based on previous observation of patterns is what allows you to make a value judgment.

Pain is not inheritedly good or bad per se. It can and often is the experienced expression of "bad" events in local context.

Pain is pain. "Good" n "bad" are contextual value judgments about pain or joy.

Contextual here does not equate to arbitrary or total relative. There are universal patterns even if there are relativistic layers from where to judge from.

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More "good" n "bad" are above all biological entity judgements. They refer to pain or joy that relate the World, the Universal order of things, with the biological experience of an individual, a group, or a species.
Pain reflects contextual disfunction. At a larger great scale Existence and its order are always good.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

If the assessment was that a video game was something good to you and was worth something to you since it has interesting characters, then you can either think that or feel that. There is a thought version of this assessment and then there is a feeling version of this assessment. It is only the good feeling version that gives your life real good value and real worth. In other words, you feeling joyful and excited about this video game is the only thing that can make that video game have real good value and real worth to you.

Also, assessments do exist on a biological scale for experiences such as physical pain. Even if you experienced physical pain and didn't think anything, this would still be your body's way of telling you that a certain situation or thing is harmful to you. That painful experience would be the "bad" signal to your brain.

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@MozartLink,

I know what you mean but again you are inverting the argument.
The "reward" of feeling good is there through evolution. Exempt disfunctional brains, they are exceptions. This means that functional processes are rewarded and disfunctional processes bring suffering to biological entities. You put stimulous ahead of Order when its the other way around.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

According to my definition of good and bad, order itself does not define good or bad. It is just simply order and nothing more. However, once you experience a good or bad feeling, that is when that order is perceived as good, bad, or worth something to you. You can perceive order through your thoughts alone or through your feelings. That all goes back to what I said before. You can either think in regards to a certain thing or situation or you can feel in regards to that thing or situation. It is only feeling good from that thing or situation (order) that allows that order to have good value and worth to you.

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@MozartLink,

No its not about feelings first, but about functionality first, that then leads to brain rewarding so that you keep the correct behaviour. You seem to be under the impression that feeling good is gratuitous.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Yes, I realize that you need a functioning reward system in order to feel good so that your life can have good value and worth to you. But I don't see how that is relevant here in this discussion. But regardless, I will still post something here to further get my point across:

When you perceive order such as the idea that your mother is going to become rich and famous and that she is going to help others since she is a very altruistic person, then the realization that this is a good thing to you and is worth something to you cannot come to you just yet. Only once you feel good from that situation would this now become a moment where your brain says:

"Aha, this is a situation that has much good value and worth to me!"

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@MozartLink,

Quote:

But I don't see how that is relevant here in this discussion.

And this is the problem you have to solve in order to get it.

As for your last example, you are again wrong. Perceived future value its immediately rewarded by the brain. That's how ppl get excited.
Investment in the right algorithm requires perceived value to be paired with a reward in the short term. The long term gain is actually not our strong point.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I would be wrong according to your definition of good and bad and you would be wrong according to my definition of good and bad. Sometimes, you can't get that good feeling because if you were depressed/anhedonic or if you had brain damage to the feel-good areas of the brain due to a stroke, then you wouldn't be able to feel good from certain things or situations. As for your definition of value that you stated below, according to my definition, that would still not be value. It would still be nothing more than a situation where you are solving problems, assessing situations, comparing things, etc. without your good feelings. You need the good feelings to actually make that have good value and worth to you.

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@MozartLink,

You see anhedonia proves my point. if you can't get rewarded when you should be rewarded for preserving actual valuable behaviour, you go down the hill and die.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Point is you shall not question Logics logic. It is.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

According to your definition of good and bad, logic itself is the very basis of value and worth in our lives. But according to my definition of good and bad, logic is merely the basis for recognizing, assessing, etc. certain things or situations. Feeling good or bad from those things or situations is the basis of having good value, bad value, or worth in our lives according to my definition of good, bad, and worth.

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Logical argument (hedonism)

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