Posts by BrainToBeing

Quote from Pacatus

All ethics is about how one gets from an “is” to an “ought.”

Hi Pacatus, I did previously respond to your excellent contribution above; however, apparently it was lost in the upgrade.

Anyway, I have a different framework for your quote above. I would say ethics is about getting from "me" to "we". The trouble with "ought" is "who do we consider to be authoritative in defining 'ought'?" It involves an expectation that has debatable foundation. In addition, "ought" is external - what the psychologists call "an external locus of control". Thus, it is not something that someone wants to do, but rather something that someone feels an obligation to do. I think real ethics are internal, not external. I think we achieve excellent ethics when the foundation of our behavioral choices is not "me" but "we" - involving a larger group of valued considerations. And, I think at the top of optimal ethics is a "we" that is planetary large. However, I realize that is "a bridge too far" for many.

Anyway, some other thoughts to put in the mix.

In my view, the problem when grappling with "being good" or eudaimonia is a perspective limited to self. Being "good" (in the philosophical sense) requires a much bigger centrism - one that encompasses all life, if not more. Likewise, eudaimonia is not achieved, IMO, without seeing, and respecting, the web of life much more broadly than self. If we stay within "self" we are either caught up in narcissism or at least admitting our lack of internal harmony. But, this may be just my view.

Quote from Pacatus

So, are you really thinking in terms of “we” – which, by definition, also includes you (because “we” is relational)? Or are you saying that you think “constantly” only of others – and not yourself at all?

"We" definitely includes me. In my view, the journey is partly about discovering and honing the balance that comes from respect - self and others. I am in the process of creating some YouTube videos on "self" - how we develop it, how we can repair it. And in those perspectives I discuss (or soon will discuss) how the "self-other" dynamic is established, and repaired where that is necessary. Too much self builds narcissism. To much other builds neurosis. And in the middle is balance - a "we" that includes you and me. (Intentionally, there is no link and no self-advocacy here. This is about "we", not "me".)

Cheers

Quote from Kalosyni

The "we" is corrupt. And we don't currently have a solution for this problem.

Thanks Kalosyni. We are an evolved species, but the evolution we came from now propagates old behavior patterns.

In my mind, actually we do have potential solutions. The core issue, IMO, is that we come from a predator lineage. In fact, we stand as life's current apex predator. Yet, that is coming back to roost in this era. It is the foundation of our angst. However, we can also see that there are those who rise above the predator mindset. Women do it more than men. There are those who don't "root for my team" on the weekend football game but rather take care of "the family" (used metaphorically). In this era, that transition is typically not appreciated for its meaning, and certainly seen as "not playing ball" by those who are tribal. Yet, the transition has started. We will learn to understand where the "not tribal" mindset comes from, and how to nourish it. AI might even help us in this regard, if we don't first use it to propagate tribalism.

There is reason to hope. And, even if there wasn't. I prefer to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Quote from TauPhi

Can I ask why you chose to deny yourself such pleasures?

I think constantly in terms of "we" rather than "me". And, in the consideration of "we" I need to ask who would pay the price if I think only of me. So, for example, when practicing medicine I very clearly knew the agenda was to do what was appropriate for the patient, and not just beneficial to my pleasure. I could have made a great deal more money and lived a much simpler life if I approached medicine for my "pleasure". And, yes, I realize that "down in the weeds" of "pleasure" is the idea that self-sacrifice may be interpreted as personal "pleasure". However, I can certainly tell you that doing what was right, rather than what was pleasurable, was not pleasure in many, many situations (long story with many elements).

Quote from Don

You might be an Epicurean after all.

Maybe. I'm not the Epicurean scholar that you all are. I'm just trying to figure out how we all live successfully on this planet, have the planet do well under our tutelage, and have the future evolve constructively (in the broad perspective of that word).

Quote from TauPhi

figure out how to wisely pursue pleasures and avoid pains so we can feel that the overall balance is positive

So, in summary, is this then the core issue of the Epicurean? If so, i guess I'm not an Epicurean. I'm more interested in doing something constructive as my core driver. I deny pleasure where pursuing it would not be constructive (e.g. coffee and a glass of wine at dinner are my only drugs). I voluntarily accept pain where it comes necessarily as a consequence of doing something constructive (e.g. vigorous exercise entails some pain). And, I volunteer for existential pain when I struggle to understand things knowing that it will separate me from the interests of, and connection to, the average human. But, maybe that's just me. Certainly the last of these pertains clearly to the members of this erudite community.

Of course, there can be no doubt that some things happen by happenstance or circumstance, and some as the result of choice. When you descend into the neurobiology of "will" it becomes even more complicated. So, on the topic of pain - particularly existential pain - we come to Epictetus: "It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." In theory, our reactions are "under our control". However, even there potentials of neurobiology are the confounder.

Quote from Cassius

It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance. [1]

Yet, chance ultimately cannot be avoided, since it permeates down to the last atom. This is why judgement is often illusory - a foible of reason, a critic of authority.

Quote from frank1syl

I believe that Epicureanism has it right when it says that mental pain is worse than physical pain.

Based on how people consume opioids when they report pain I believe you are right. Addiction as a response to structural pain is rare. The reason for this is that addiction produces dysfunction whereas people with serious structural pain are focused on improving function. Conversely, where chronic pain is primarily psychosocial and existential then addiction to drugs is rather common (because drugs are "mind altering" and "take away" the anguish.)

Quote from frank1syl

But, taking my cue from the Stoics, the way to lessen mental pain is to realize that this is an area in which we have considerable power, and to focus on our mental capacities and abilities, rather than external events or circumstances, is the best way to approach mental pain. This is often the opposite of how we try to lessen mental pain, which is to try to change our circumstances -- go on a cruise, buy a new car, redecorate our homes, take a pill, increase our aim for what is neither natural nor necessary, etc.

The mechanisms of "mental pain" are complex, and commonly tragic when the issues are severe. We need to remember, of course, that mental pain can come in greatly different levels. If you screwed up the answer on question number 26 of yesterday's gardening test you might feel some mental pain, but a vacation would probably be good. Alternatively, if chronic mental pain is the result of childhood abuse then all of those efforts to "buy the way out of the pain" typically don't work. In my practice I saw many people who felt worse after coming back from an expensive vacation. They learned that they can feel better (and typically the pain was better, or even gone, during the vacation) but then they come back to "reality" and sink into deeper anguish.

By the way, I'm listening to Dr. Glidden on Prolepsis in a podcast on this site. He talks about "living in the present moment and living without fear". Indeed, these are critical to stress and pain management. A great deal of stress is derived from "living in the past" (worry or anger about past events) or "living in the future" (again, worry or fear about imagined future events). Living in the present moment emphasizes seeing what is, rather than what was or might be. And generally the real "now" is not as stress provoking as the other periods. (Of course, there is acute injury or acute loss, but "acute" doesn't last very long.) So, living in the now is a path to reduce the biology that generates pain - nociceptive or existential.

Wow, you people are a delight! So many great ideas, and things that might be said about them. For my part, I hardly know where to start or what to respond to. I'll stay with the medical, neurobiological issues since that is where I might be of most benefit.

Quote from Godfrey

For example if I have an injury I may eventually notice that I'm avoiding doing certain things, even though doing them doesn't actually hurt. Or I'll anticipate an action being painful and tense up, thereby making it more painful than it would be otherwise. I'm thinking here of the injury as being "pain" and the avoiding or anticipating as being or causing "suffering".

Reacting to past injury in this way might be considered "suffering"; however, I would put it in the category of adaptive strategy. Indeed, in most cases we do have caution or avoid places and circumstances where we have previously suffered injury. The aphorism "once burned, twice shy" comes to mind.

In contrast, "suffering" is more tightly related to living with or reliving the anguish of a prior situation. For example, with the death of a parent we all would feel loss and some suffering. However, some people who saw themselves as highly dependent on the parent might have this suffering go on for years.

Quote from Godfrey

How do desires fit into this evolutionary picture of pains, or do they? Are desires, biologically, considered pains or are they completely different? Philosophically, they seem to be a type of pain and yet, at the same time, they seem to be something quite different.

In my view desires are not equivalent to pain (existential or nociceptive). However, our desires, and particularly the loss of them as lost dreams, do produce existential anguish. And, because losses produce existential anguish they may compound nociceptive pain - making it much worse and lasting much longer. Also desires in the form of "that shouldn't have happened" cause existential anguish and do the same thing - propagating and exacerbating our perception of pain. So, sociological loss and psychological loss, particularly where compounded by expectations of "shouldn't have" and anger, markedly exacerbate nociceptive pain, lead to pain treatment failures, and extend pain symptoms into years or longer where the nociceptive injury might largely recover within weeks or a few months.

Quote from Godfrey

Also, is a complete absence of pain something that is considered neurologically possible while maintaining full consciousness?

No. There is a rare, serious condition called "Congenital Insensitivity to Pain". (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564101/)

This leads to tissue destruction and early death. So, such a condition is not impossible.

On the other hand, with less drama, there are many people who don't pay much attention to pain. For example, extreme sports enthusiasts (example: dirt bike riders) may be injured seriously many times and yet they quickly get over it and don't pay much attention to residual pains. This is an interesting subject (too long for this entry).

Quote from Godfrey

My thinking is that, eventually, it would be most interesting to get an outline of how pleasure, pain and desire operate, together and separately, then perhaps dig into details from that point. But in my ignorance I might be overly ambitious about such a complex subject....

It would easily support a whole book. The problem is that the complexity and some of the answers would not be appealing to a large audience.

Quote from Don

How would you describe the pain from "painful" memories or similar mental pains? There's no actual nociception going on there, is there? I'm curious for you to expand on the "existential pain" you mentioned in passing.

Because of the biological cross-connection of nociception and suffering we tend to use the word "pain" to cover both. So, as you said, we may refer to "painful" memories involving losses or abuses that did not actually involve any nociceptive pain. So, this is an interesting philosophical area which explores how types of experiences generate our vocabulary, and how this vocabulary may be subsequently extended to uses that involve some element of the original type of experience, while actually not correlating with it entirely. (Essentially, the vocabulary of metaphorical, experiential Venn/Euler diagrams.)

"Existential pain" may then be understood as a type of suffering that derives from adversity of various types. Two paths lead to "existential pain" as a term: 1) When we talk about loss we want it to be understood as important, interfering, and anguish-producing; so, we use "pain" vocabulary to transmit these ideas; 2) people suffering a lot of existential pain are considerably more prone to experience nociceptive pain even when the nociceptor is minor and transient.

Okay, this is probably way more in this entry that you would wish to see. So, I will stop. Hope the above helps and answers some questions (though perhaps generating others).

Best to all you smart folks!

Okay, I'm happy to contribute. And, we could come at the topic (collectively) from a variety of vantage points. I would be happy if this was a discussion, not a didactic. In that spirit, let me throw out a couple of frameworks that I think are helpful to get the big picture of pain as a human experience. Then we can see where the discussion takes us from there.

For me, to really understand pain it is pivotal to understand evolution. Pain essentially says two things from an evolutionary perspective: 1) this is a problem, and 2) this is concerning. The former reports function and structure issues and is summarized in neurobiology as nociception. The latter reports existential risks and is summarized in the neurobiology of suffering and anguish. Pain biology always contains both elements, though the proportions can be greatly different and have greatly different courses over time. Evolution clearly understood that structural dysfunction presented risks, both physical and existential.

A great starting point to understand the dynamic interplay of these two issues is a simple, non-serious childhood injury. We've all see a child do something like fall down or fall (non-seriously) from a bicycle, get up screaming, run to a parent, and lapse in to further screams and crying. From the reaction one would anticipate that important injury had occurred. However, the parent nurtures the child, checks wounds and finds them minor, reassures and comforts the child, and in a few minutes the child is out playing with friends again. Examination of this scenario reveals that injury sets off both nociception and suffering/anguish. But, when risk and seriousness are removed from the equation the anguish goes away and the nociception quickly becomes a modest issue.

So, that takes me to the Lucretius quote, "“But when the mind is excited by some more vehement apprehension, we see the whole soul feel in unison through all the limbs, sweats and paleness spreadover the whole body, the tongue falter, the voice die away, a mist cover the eyes, the ears ring, the limbs sink under one; in short we often see men drop down from terror of mind; so that anybody may easily perceive from this that the soul is closely united with the mind, and, when it has been smitten by the influence of the mind, forthwith pushes and strikes the body.”

And, indeed, it strikes the body - in this context - with pain behaviors and exacerbation of nociceptive pain. Adult behaviors are outgrowths of these early presentations. When stress, fear, and vulnerability are high pain tends to be high. A great deal of the discussion of "chronic pain" is actually a discussion of chronic anguish. Opioids (pain pills) relieve both nociceptive pain and emotive pain. The reason is that they are interlinked in evolutionary neurobiology. The "opioid pain crisis" of the 1990's and before was really a discussion of opioids used for existential pain (they work, and then lead to addiction).

Okay, that's enough for the moment. So, let's see what portion of this strikes interest and we can go from there.

Should the topic of pain be of interest I can talk about the biology and psychology of pain at great length. And yes, "existential" (psychosocially driven emotive pain) is more vexing and more long lasting than nociceptive (physical structure) pain. It is a major player in many forms of "chronic pain".

Indeed. We just watched the extended version of the Rings trilogy again. Tolkien was amazing in framing the themes, characters, and interplay of that story. Certainly it reigns as my favorite fiction of all time. How brilliant that the only one who could be the ring-bearer was someone who didn't care about power or gold, and could give it away. Yet, Tolkien recognized that enough exposure to "the power" could corrode even Frodo. One of my favorite scenes (relevant to the exploits of this lofty group) is the one at the end, in the pub where the hobbits were just part of the crowd, accorded no recognition for saving the world. Leave it to Tolkien to ensure that scene was written and recognized.

Thanks Godfrey. Yes, well stated. Indeed, this is a discussion and not a resolution. In addition to boards in neurology I also have boards in addiction. And, addiction is a great place to study what makes us happy and what doesn't (and how we get to either situation). And, as you say, knowing the drivers of our happiness (and/or unhappiness) are very important to finding....ummmm...happiness! My wife is a clinical mental health counselor (and academic) and we talk a lot about the paths to satisfaction, happiness, and life balance (particularly how to rebuild these when they are lost).

All very interesting stuff! Again, engaging with you all is a lot of fun.

Yes, Don, you are right for sure. Absolute polarization doesn't work.

Mostly I was reflecting on the issue of "a happy life". I believe Epicureanism has been challenged as advocating hedonism. And, the focus of "a happy life" may then leave us wondering if that is the best "yardstick". You all are far more educated on Epicurean philosophy than I am. And, I was wondering if, particularly in this era of the planet, we can really say that searching for "a happy life" is going to save us all from the ecological and technological dilemmas we are creating. Just an opportunity for discussion, if it seems interesting.

When pursuing a search example posed by Cassius I came across this: "Epicurus believed that the ultimate aim of a happy life is 'freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind'". I don't know if this is a quote from this site or from elsewhere.

However, it raises the question: is the "ultimate aim" a happy life or a relevant, contributing life? The former seems so narcissistic.

Thoughts, perspectives? (Or, have you already talked that into the ground?)

Yes, basically. And you did put it well.

The analysis of the subject does depend on the evaluation of "proper cognitive functioning". We can say that the emotive system is built-in and central to how we process the world. Removing it from consideration (vis a vis Spock, at least the Vulcan part of him) doesn't work for our species. It actually leads to worse existential anguish. So, "proper cognitive functioning" needs to consider what emotions tell us. However, the degree to which that is a focus depends upon the situation. Over-utilization of emotions leads to a type of chaos, over-reactivity, and distraction from analysis. Under-utilization leads to failure to understand those often-hidden but important "subconscious" beliefs, values, and expectations that frame our perspectives of the world. Emotions tell us about these. Paying attention to emotions helps us to understand what is really driving our reaction patterns (why we get upset about something "little", or why a person "rubs us the wrong way", for examples). Overall this is a long discussion.

There are varying viewpoints on this subject. The main perspective is that we do, objectively, have the emotive system and if we want to function well overall we need to understand its role and what it tells us.

Cheers.

Whoa, you guys are smart! This is erudite stuff!

So, for your entertainment, I'll throw another concept into the works: neurobiology and data segregation on entry.

The human brain is not evolved to discover abstract truth. It is evolved to determine reaction patterns, based upon what we have construed as "truth". If you look at the actual anatomy of information processing you will discover that as information comes in through the senses it literally passes by - for first appreciation - the limbic (emotive) system. This anatomical foundation is based on evolutionary survival issues. If a lion is coming at you and someone is offering you an ice cream cone, you better "ignore" the ice cream cone and pay attention to the lion, or it will be your last ice cream cone.

In brain processing, incoming information is sorted by this limbic assessment into "relevant", "not-relevant" and "curious". That which is deemed relevant - by the emotive systems - is retained for action determination. That which is deemed not-relevant-for-current-use is relatively side-stepped. That which is determined "curious" is sent on to the cortex for further analysis. Very interesting and potentially complex processing proceeds from there.

The relevance of this to the above discussion is that "truth" - within our appreciation of it - is assessed from sorted data, not absolute data. There is very interesting hard science related to this. And, this leads us to Hobbes: "Such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome." He understood.

For an example of this processing problem you can see the following:https://www.npr.org/2010/05/19/126…visible-gorilla

There are many, many other objective-science examples of processing issues related to this "perception" problem.

So, you can add this to the erudite discussion above to see where it leads you.

Cheers,

Thank you!

All totally excellent, Don! Yes! Right on!

I'm very much enjoying being here: smart people, fun things to think about, interesting conjectures/discussion/debate. Much fun!

Your use of the computer metaphor is right. And, Dr. Barrett is right also. Another person who has opined on this is the psychologist, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Daniel Kahneman. His book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is an exploration of our two basic systems (broad generalization) for processing incoming data. The version which is evolutionarily older, expedient, and intent on "fast" is our system of reactions. The version which is evolutionarily newer, inventive, and "slow" by obligation is our analytical system. A core element of what makes us, us, is the interplay of these two systems. You have alluded to this.

Also helpful is your comment: "For my part, I see those predictions as prolepseis against which incoming sense data is compared." This is helpful because it offers a "working definition" of prolepseis. And, that is partly how I started my engagement with all of you: by seeking to understand how you all use that word. So, I need to ask, for all of you is "prolepesis" the same as "prolepsis"? These might have varied definitions.

Again, much fun. Thank you for letting me participate with you in this interesting adventure.