Is hedonism the only way to a good life?

[The Transcended Omniverse]

Hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure is the only good thing in life. I have come up with my own arguments to support hedonism. I think these arguments could possibly be breakthrough discoveries. However, this is way too long for me to present here. Besides, it cannot fit within this post. I have written a whole book on it and I have written a summary of my book. For now, I will just present the book summary which also has the Q&A Section to it for more important information and further support for hedonism. This is a link to my Deviant Art journal which has the book summary. Read what you can of it and respond. If you can read all of it and give a full response to all of it, then that would be lovely:

http://fav.me/dc41lib

[jgh7]

I doubt I'm going to read your book, sorry I just don't like to read, nothing personal. But I will say that hedonism does strike me as a very logical way to live life. Not the literal hedonism where you just engage in primal desires non-stop. But a form that focuses on discovering what brings you pleasure (more akin to happiness, peace, satisfaction, and yes primal pleasure as well) and the best life to live to maximize it. It is very self-centered focused, but I think that gets painted unjustifiably in a negative light most of the time.

[William]

[Replying to post 1 by The Transcended Omniverse]

I have written a summary of my book.

I went to the link provided but did not see anything of a summary. Perhaps you can C&P your summary here?

[The Transcended Omniverse]

Proof That Our Emotions Are The Perception Of Value: I talk about how our emotions allow us to perceive value. Many people would disagree with this idea because many people think that emotions are just simply emotions (i.e. how we feel about things) and nothing more. But I think this example I am going to give you might prove how our emotions really are the perception of value. When you, for example, feel fear from being in a dangerous situation, that feeling of fear is a chemical message to the brain which is telling your brain something. It tells your brain "THREAT!!!" or "DANGER!!!" This would be no different than your brain getting the message "IT MATTERS!!!"

When something matters to you, this means it is something good or bad from your perspective. For example, if the loss of your loved one mattered to you or if getting a new movie is something that mattered to you, then this means those things had value from your perspective. Therefore, when you feel fear, that is no different than your brain getting the message that this dangerous situation you felt fear from was something bad. So, I can honestly conclude that emotions are the message of value to our brains. But since people are in denial of this, then they are in denial of their own emotions. That is why I do not trust humanity because people are often times in denial and delusional.

Humanity currently believes in this idea that emotions being the source of value in our lives is for the weak-minded and that the real value comes about through our intellect, character, and morals. I think humanity is also in denial when it comes to their moral and intellectual based values because I don't think these are real values. In essence, my views oppose the vast majority of humanity. I think the emotional values are the real values while the values founded upon morality, intellect, and character are the fake values. But humanity thinks the opposite. Humanity thinks I am the one who is delusional and in denial and I think it is humanity that is delusional and in denial.

[Divine Insight]

Humanity currently believes in this idea that emotions being the source of value in our lives is for the weak-minded and that the real value comes about through our intellect, character, and morals. I think humanity is also in denial when it comes to their moral and intellectual based values because I don't think these are real values. In essence, my views oppose the vast majority of humanity. I think the emotional values are the real values while the values founded upon morality, intellect, and character are the fake values. But humanity thinks the opposite. Humanity thinks I am the one who is delusional and in denial and I think it is humanity that is delusional and in denial.

My answer to this is quite simple.

First off, if to satisfy your emotional desire requires that you cause harm, or any form of emotional suffering to others, then clearly your ideas are flawed and therefore of little value to anyone other than the most self-centered and careless person. Certainly not a philosophy that any larger society would care to embrace.

On the other hand, if you can be emotionally fulfilled and find value in life without causing anyone else harm or emotional suffering, then you are already in harmony with the moral values of most humans. Apparently you just aren't aware of this fact.

[2ndRateMind]

Hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure is the only good thing in life...

Seems to me, hedonism is the excuse to a selfish, superficial, complacent, irrelevant life. But if that's what you want, well, we all have the right to go to hell in our own way.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Overcomer]

Emotions are tremendously unreliable and can lead to some pretty bad things. After all, it makes a pedophile feel good to molest children. Are you really going to argue that if something feels right, that makes it good and acceptable?

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 7 by Overcomer]

First of all, I am going to revise my opening statement/summary a bit since I need to expand on a few things. From there, I will present 9 arguments that address the problem you have posed:

Proof That Our Emotions Are The Perception Of Value: I talk about how our emotions allow us to perceive value. Many people would disagree with this idea because many people think that emotions are just simply emotions (i.e. how we feel about things) and nothing more. But I think this example I am going to give you might prove how our emotions really are the perception of value. When you, for example, feel fear from being in a dangerous situation, that feeling of fear is a chemical message to the brain which is telling your brain something.

It tells your brain "THREAT!!!" or "DANGER!!!" This would be no different than your brain getting the message "IT MATTERS!!!" When your brain gets that message of threat and danger, that allows you to perceive things and situations as being threatening and dangerous. When you perceive a situation as being threatening or dangerous, that is no different than perceiving that situation as something that matters to you because, if it's a threat or danger, then it matters.

Now, when something matters to you, this means it is something good or bad from your perspective. For example, if the loss of your loved one mattered to you or if getting a new movie is something that mattered to you, then this means those things had value from your perspective.

Therefore, when you feel fear, that is no different than your brain getting the message that this dangerous situation you felt fear from was something bad. So, I can honestly conclude that emotions are the message of value to our brains which means they really are the perception of value. But since people are in denial of this, then they are in denial of their own emotions.

That is why I do not trust humanity because people are often times in denial and delusional. Humanity currently believes in this idea that emotions being the source of value in our lives is for the weak-minded and that the real value comes about through our intellect, character, and morals. I think humanity is also in denial when it comes to their moral and intellectual based values because I don't think these are real values. In essence, my views oppose the vast majority of humanity.

I think the emotional values are the real values while the values founded upon morality, intellect, and character are the fake values. But humanity thinks the opposite. Humanity thinks I am the one who is delusional and in denial and I think it is humanity that is delusional and in denial.

Now, here are the 9 arguments:

1.) If we treat good and bad as materialistic things like water, food, money, and electricity, then we no longer have a moral definition of good and bad here. What we have here is a materialistic definition of good and bad. A person who feels a lot of positive emotions in their lives would, thus, be no different than a person who is rich and has a lot of money. A person who is euphoric would be rich in the good value and beauty in life.

But a person who is very depressed, miserable, or apathetic would be very poor on the good value and beauty in life. According to my worldview, positive and negative emotions are intrinsically good and bad. Therefore, argument #1 would have to apply. Lastly, I think the good value of our lives is founded upon nothing more than our materialistic, pleasure-seeking nature as human beings and that many people with a sense of morality are in denial of this.

2.) We as human beings are not stupid and we can still make whatever decision we need to make regardless of how we feel to save our lives, the lives of others, and to benefit ourselves and others. Even if, for example, there is no value in saving the life of someone else for a person who feels completely numb, that numb person can still force himself to save that person anyway just from the idea in his head that this someone is a good person and needs to be saved. I have done many things in my life regardless of how I felt.

Sure, I do give up on my hobbies and whatnot when I feel miserable and hopeless. But I still force myself to do things that are necessary such as walking on the treadmill to keep myself alive and healthy. The thing is though, we as human beings need to have good and beautiful value in our lives. If we just lived our lives forcing ourselves to do things when we don't feel up to them, then that is no way to live at all.

I also do not agree with the idea that me making certain choices already presupposes that my life had value regardless of how I felt. This is because I can clearly tell, from my own introspection, that my conscious being was completely empty and dead inside during my hopeless moments. So, I can clearly tell that my life had no beautiful value whatsoever during my hopeless moments regardless of the things I thought and did. However, there could be a positive emotion there on such a small level that I was unable to detect.

In which case, my life really did have beautiful value during these miserable moments. But it would be something so small that I was unable to detect it. If something had no good value to me at all whatsoever, then wouldn't I be something like a sitting statue? I am not sure about this one. It could very well be possible that we as human beings can still make decisions and perform certain actions even if things have no value and worth whatsoever to us.

3.) Plenty of things that sound absurd are, in fact, true things. So, just because my worldview/model sounds absurd and false does not make it false. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of cruel things in this world that are already true.

4.) Life is unfair and doesn't always give us what we want. People wish to create their own values in their lives and not have anything else dictate the value of their lives. But just because people want this does not mean they can have it. That all goes back to argument #1. Your moral, character, and intellect alone cannot make you a rich person. You cannot make money magically fall from the sky into your lap by believing so. You need actual money and a lot of it to be rich.

5.) It is often times beautiful things in life that are rare and very fleeting. For example, a rainbow is only there for a little while before it fades away. We can chase after the rainbow all we like, but it will fade away. I think the beautiful value in our lives works the same way. We as human beings want an everlasting value in our lives through our morality, character, and intellect. I do not think this type of value exists. Thus, we as human beings are rendered to chase after positive emotions to give our lives beautiful value and positive emotions, as I said before, are very fleeting things.

6.) Life is mostly a matter of luck. Some people are rich, some people are poor, some are healthy, while others are unhealthy. Having value in our lives might work the same way. In other words, people who are very happy through their positive emotions are the lucky ones who have a lot of good value in their lives while depressed, miserable people are the unlucky ones who have little to no good value in their lives.

7.) There are certain needs we have as human beings that have devastating effects. For example, we all need a heart to live. But this need has devastating effects because people who have heart attacks would cause grief to their loved ones. Therefore, just because our need for positive emotions as being the only good things in life would have the devastating effects of, for example, it being a good thing for a psychopath to harm an innocent person if that psychopath felt a positive emotion from that or it causing grief to a loved one when we lose our positive emotions since he/she would hate to see our lives become devoid of good value, that does not dismiss such a need as being false.

8.) We as human beings are delusional. Being delusional was something that benefited the survival of us and others. Believing in values founded upon morality, character, and intellect obviously serves a benefit to us and others even though said values aren't real. That all goes back to what I said earlier in regards to how people believe in false ideas, religions, and things such as fundamentalist Christianity or the existence of Thor.

But then there are people who are not delusional and realize the truth such as the atheists. You will meet many hedonists who think like me and you will meet many non hedonists who believe moral and intellectual based values are real values just as how you will meet many atheists and many Christians who think their religion is true. Hedonists and non hedonists debate just as how Christians and atheists debate. I personally think the hedonists had it right all along.

9.) I just find it impossible to fathom. If I were to ask someone who has a sense of moral and intellectual values if taking the most powerful bliss-inducing drug in the world would give his life more beautiful value than contributing to the world and to his family even during his worst miserable moment, he would say that no blissful state can ever compare. He would say that it doesn't matter how powerful and how profound the bliss is; he would still say to me that moral and intellectual values are something that go far beyond any amount of bliss. This, to me, just sounds like wishful thinking and denial. The most profound and powerful bliss in the world would give you the most profound and powerful perception/experience of joy, beauty, love, happiness, and good value in your life.

For people with moral and intellectual values to claim that their values are something that go far beyond that would be no different than them saying that they can just put themselves into a state of mind through their morality, character, and intellect alone that goes far beyond even the most amazing, profound, and powerful bliss in the world. I will admit, that would be pretty sweet if that is possible. But I think this is a fantasy that people believe in. After all, we are wired for delusion as I said before. But if I am somehow wrong and our morality, character, and intellect alone really can allow us to perceive beauty and joy on a level that goes far beyond even the most profound and powerful bliss in the world, then count me in. However, I am skeptical about this and I just don't believe any of this.

This is why I conclude that moral and intellectual values have to be fake values that people want to believe in. Likewise, I have experienced crippled states and other horrible emotional states in my nightmares which were far horrible beyond anything imaginable. For my morality, character, and intellect alone to give me such a horrible perception/experience is simply impossible. It would be impossible both in my dream state and in my waking life. One last thing here. I know I have talked about drugs giving us the most profound and powerful beauty and joy in our lives, but I do not do drugs and nor would I ever just from knowing the consequences. I keep myself and my brain healthy. I do not smoke, drink, or eat unhealthy foods. I also walk on the treadmill to keep myself healthy.