Which do you value more: Meaning or Pleasure?

waht

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gu1KETjVY

pizza is 100% better than hot dogs

but tacos are better than pizza

I feel like I try to embrace both and get very little of either.

just get delivery

meaning

I picked meaning cos i think it's more abstract than pleasure.

what about ppl who are titillated by their own searches for meaning?
what about ppl who find meaning in their decadent pursuit of pleasure?

i definitely embrace both tacos and pizza

Do you think it's not a valid question? xp

I really admire hedonists, and I feel silly for admiring them because I'm ultimately just boringly practical, and can never join their ranks with aplomb.

I think hedonists are just regular ppl that just want extra attention.

xp

I identify w that a lot, I'm such a boy scout but I'm like...yeah so what if smoked th drugs ok no I have work in the morning at what wd my mom think

Do you think it's not a valid question? xp

i think that they're too intertwined to meaningfully tease out as anything but just these platonic forms and ideals. it would be like saying which do you value more: experience or reflection?

so this guy was telling me that pleasure and pain were additive, and that you could get one to cancel out the other, and that sounds bogus because if you just had your wisdom teeth taken out, and took exactly the amount of vicodin to get rid of the pain, that's still a qualitatively different feeling than not having the pain in the first place. like it's not a spreadsheet you can balance your pleasure budget with!

xp Like most constructs it only functions if you entertain the idea that it could be true. Seriously, think about your interests, your habits — it's an interesting thought.

An example of meaning v. pleasure in everyday life: people who flit from subject to subject in a conversation as opposed to people who still want to talk about the original subject when everyone else has moved onto something else.

meaning, i think

I think maybe you're privileging certain kinds of pleasures over others, and certain kinds of ways of knowing over others. (and i'm going to guess from your everyday life anecdote that you think of yourself as falling on the 'meaning' side of things.) isn't knowing through a broad familiarity with a variety of subjects just a different kind of knowing from a deep engagement with something? ppl who flit from conversation to conversation aren't necessarily choosing pleasure over meaning. and vice-versa. lots of ppl get deep pleasure from talking about the original subject when everyone has moved onto something else. xp

meaning is a kind of valuation, so it's like asking if you value valuation more than something that can be valued, or more concretely, do you like money more than you like hot dogs. well, you can buy hot dogs with money, so probably you like money more. but, you don't actually like eating money so...

frankly, i feel meaning is as much a driver of unnecessary suffering as money is, so in the abstract, meaning is worse than hot dogs. but hot dogs without meaning is unpleasurable, so...

there's a lot of TED-style things popping up about the importance of "meaningful" work, but the way they are deployed, they seem to be ways of tricking employees into working harder for less money, so in that sense, meaning is even more insidious than money.

I feel like I need an option C. But I'll go with pleasure.

Less pleasure, but more like sensory indulgences that may or may not be called pleasurable. Really, I value stimulation.

Option C could be Love. Ideally, it combines them.

pleaning

i value meaning as a form of pleasure, tbh

plus other sorts of pleasure

this poll's forced dichotomy seems rather meaningless to me and I take no pleasure in it.

measure.

I think hedonists are just regular ppl that just want extra attention.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 27 March 2012 02:49 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think hedonists are just regular ppl that just want more drugs!

I take pleasure in meaning. For real. I mean, to use the example you give, any meaning gained from being the last person left talking at a party if everyone else is gone, is only worthwhile if I've enjoyed the conversation as well. You know? I'm too immature/childish at heart to just want to sit and dissect something for hours without a few laughs and shared moments along the way.

Both together are the essence, personally, of my human experience. One without the other is seems like it would be kind of hollow, to me. Not that you don't ever do one or the other, but the richest experiences are usually a combination of the two, to my mind.

I dunno if I can vote...oy

I think this may be way too broad a question for me to answer. If one were to view my life objectively, it'd probably appear that I value meaning a damn sight more than pleasure (as my pursuit of the former tends to throw a spanner in the works of the latter), but I put a high premium on finding enjoyment of whatever I'm involved with at a given time...

Yeah, I don't know. Sorry.

Is this like people who say "I go to movies to be entertained" versus the people who roll their eyes at that comment?

"pleasure" with little hesitation, tho i suspect my def of "meaning" wd be different to some people's

False dichotomy. Like there can't be pleasure in meaning, and meaning in pleasure. Abstaining from voting.

Is this related to Socrates dissatisfied vs. a pig satisfied? Was thinking of running a poll on that meself. I'd be the pig, every time. Doesn't mean I'd pick pleasure here though, maybe the opposite - it's the futility of the constant search for meaning which makes me think I'd be the pig if only I had the chance.

xp but there can be pleasure with no meaning and meaning with no pleasure.

it's not a "false" dichotomy because i don't think it's posed as an either/or so much as a preference or emphasis

pleasure exists so

There can be chocolate without peanut butter and peanut butter without chocolate, it doesn't make it a ~meaningful~ dichotomy (tho it sure is pleasurable.)

I pick chocolate.

and tbh i think of this question in a zen kinda way and am not sure what this thing called "meaning" is

on of those big words that make us so unhappy

it's not a "false" dichotomy because i don't think it's posed as an either/or so much as a preference or emphasis

it's a false dichotomy because they're the same thing. not even "these two things are inextricable from each other" - they are the same thing. i find pleasure when i find meaning. i find meaning in "pure hedonism" and that's why i do it.

An example of meaning v. pleasure in everyday life: people who flit from subject to subject in a conversation as opposed to people who still want to talk about the original subject when everyone else has moved onto something else.

when i want to talk about the original subject after everyone else has moved on, that's because i'm taking pleasure in thinking about! it is pure selfish hedonism.

obv voting pleasure though

because of janet

"Janet!"

(sorry, had a Rocky horror moment there)

what?

i don't feel like when i'm thinking about things i'm pursuing or constructing meaning, somehow

I think I might resent the question so much because, to me, this idea of a divide between "meaning" and "pleasure" is something that is both informed by and derived from that ugly mind-body divide that fuels certain sin-obsessed and pleasure-hating strains of religion, specifically many branches of Protestant Christianity.

(I have no idea if this was at all in implicit in the thread starter, in fact, I'm guessing it wasn't, but it's something that has very strong associations to me)

I don't know if I'd go as far as Lex, though I'm certainly more inclined towards his viewpoint than the opposite, but the search for one is so intrinsically tied up with the other that I don't think it's useful or helpful to try to separate them, in fact, I've seen the harm done when they are forcibly pried apart.

what?

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 27 March 2012 08:48 (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't worry, you either know, or you don't know.

xpost to Kate, I can't think of any pleasure that doesn't have meaning.

Back when I was a part-time hedonist, each time I was like "so This is what this means!" and that is where the story ends.

Oh, just thought of one:

Some comedies on TV. Joke, joke, joke, joke.

I can laugh all the way through it, but when it ends I think "That had nothing I can take away, really", "Everyone Loves Raymond" was like that for me. (even "You've been framed" I can take some sort of meaning from)

the meaning of birdsong, dazzle of sunlight in a garden, the sea in full storm...the wrong kind of question imo

i say this as somebody who perhaps spent too much time when younger trying to puzzle out the wrong questions

agreed. i think. "waht is the meaning of life" is a non-question.

Actually, I'm not even sure it's only the Protestants. The Mind-Body divide, and the casting of one half as "sinful" crept in with the Gnostics, maybe even earlier. Still not having it.

i cd make a case for the idea of "meaning" being a construct of, or constructive of, a mind/body dualism i think

no meaning without dualism? seems unlikely.

no "meaning" without dualism

ah ok. good luck on yr quest for the origin of a non-concept then :)

maybe the concept of meaning files experience into a drawer marked "Mental" which it separates from the idea of "Sensation"

But all sensation is mental!

there's a separate issue between a limited definition of meaning as in "the meaning of a word or sign", we can accept that as a useful referent inside a system. but the broader orthodox meaning of "meaning" implies a meta-level of existence perhaps, secret blueprints of the universe or a Platonic idea of Forms of things that's just as vulnerable to absurdity

and making that meta-level "the mind" or "mentality" doesn't solve the issue in any way i think. even saying "mental" is, practically, assigning yr humanity to the brain in a dualist manner, unless you stretch "mental" to a sense that nobody ever usually uses it in

I voted "Feelin' Groovy" #1 in the Paul Simon poll, so meaning all the way.

there is only the will to power

Pleasure.

in the better words of chaucer:

And which of yow that bereth hym best of alle
That is to seyn, that telleth in this caas
Tales of best sentence and moost solaas
Shal have a soper at oure aller cost
Heere in this place, sittynge by this post

I'm with Lex and Cheesecake; this is a profoundly idiotic and arbitrary dichotomy. It's not a dichotomy. It's false.

Maybe so.

I think NV has understood the question — they aren't mutually exclusive, just tendencies. There is no pseudo-religious implication of pleasure equating with sin in the question.

What if the options were Truth v. Contentment?

my very first thought on reading the title was about texts, tbh. plaisir vs jouissance and so forth. but also here, i'd consider the world to be a text.

... And I have a dyslexic heart.

Anyway, I really don't know what to answer re pleasure/meaning. I think meaning maybe.

What? Tanuki your options get more and more absurd. Truth va Contentment? In what ways do these qualities not overlap? Learning to reconcile them is part of the process of growing up and becoming a full human being.

And I utterly fail to see which of meaning and pleasure are supposed to map to truth or contentment?

No this makes no sense to me at all.

I stand with Tanuki.

If he gives me choices, I pick.

I said meaning, but I don't know if it's really true. I think people get pleasure out of meaning, if meaning is what they value.

Which do you value more: Moaning or Pleasure?

Yeah, check the misread thread thread, we've all been there.

http://www.ucpress.edu/img/covers/isbn13/9780520248236.jpg

Well there's a book cover deliberately designed to vex me.

it's a cool book

they all seem pretty distressed or concerned at his harp playing.

Oh yeah Billiam Wake drew that cover!

He's got his beard caught in his g-string.

I'm with Lex and Cheesecake; this is a profoundly idiotic and arbitrary dichotomy. It's not a dichotomy. It's false.

disagree. individuals will interpret things differently, of course, but as applies to people in general, meaning can exist absent pleasure (i.e., can be experienced/found in things/ways that aren't pleasurable), and pleasure can exist absent meaning. these two things can overlap, can be identical, but they are not necessarily identical and can be ontologically distinguished from one another. therefore, while the dichotomy may well be "arbitrary", that's no great sin, and it's certainly not "false".

which do you value more: contributing to a discussion, or being right?

both, of course

"finding meaning gives me pleasure" pssh yeah ok guys, you must all be v highly evolved or highly deluded to perform this sort of alchemy

"okay, now say it again, but slower this time."
"all. life. is. suffering."
"fuck yeah, that feels SO GOOD to contemplate that meaning. what a rush!"

But it does, doesnt it?

Would you ever seek out meaning if it was painful to you? A philosophical masochist or something?

An example of meaning v. pleasure in everyday life: people who flit from subject to subject in a conversation as opposed to people who still want to talk about the original subject when everyone else has moved onto something else.

I'm still trying to figure out which of these is supposed to represent "meaning" because they both seem to be about "pleasure"

Would you ever seek out meaning if it was painful to you?

i don't know... i mean, i see a therapist, if that's what you're asking...?

"Would you ever seek out meaning if it was painful to you? A philosophical masochist or something?"

people do this all the time! e.g. flagellants, grad school students, every viewer of last season of LOST.

Well at any rate, both meaning and pleasure are false truths.

didn't samuel johnson refute it thus by eating a taco?

Would you ever seek out meaning if it was painful to you?

perhaps, and perhaps not. the active search for meaning aside, one might acquire meaning through painful means and/or accept meaning without particular pleasure.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

What a pleasant result. I'm not sure what it means though.

always a pleasure, ilx