Some intelectual discussion for everyone (don't worry, it doesn't hurt). This is driving me mad because I can't answer it...
Suppose there were a machine you could be attached to, which would stimulate the pleasure centres of the brain. Using this machine would be a way of guaranteeing continuous intense pleasure for as long as the individual remained attached to it. We chould imagine various forms the machine might take - maybe it would simply generate physical pleasure of such intensity that an individual would want nothing else, or perhaps it might generate a virtual world in which all of an individual's desires are satisfied. Whatever it's exact specification, would you agree to be attached to this machine for life?
Discuss.
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I reserve... I reserve... I have a reservation... I HAVE a reservation.. What do you mean its not in the computer?
Hell yeah. But would you be allowed short breaks off unattached? Kinda defeats the purpose tho. Oh but wehere would people want it attached too? For me, would be neck............................
The argument we had was that the machine would remove the sense of boredom from being happy 24/7 because boredom is a form of unhappiness and therefore it wouldnt let you feel it,
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I reserve... I reserve... I have a reservation... I HAVE a reservation.. What do you mean its not in the computer?
I read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace this summer. It's about a film that's so incredibly good that once you've started watching it all you can do for the rest of your life is continue watching it. Someone takes it away, you scream and moan until you get it back. You **** yourself. You don't eat. You don't speak. You just sit there and stare until you die. But it doesn't matter, because you're ecstatically, beatifically happy.
So yeah, I'd go for it, as long as I got a drip and a catheter with it.
Adam wrote: The argument we had was that the machine would remove the sense of boredom from being happy 24/7 because boredom is a form of unhappiness and therefore it wouldnt let you feel it,
I was going to say something along similar lines.
I don't know why it's driving you mad, though. It'd say that there's no one correct way of answeing it.
It's driving me mad, because I think that I would quite like to be plugged into the machine, but i suspect that it isn't the right thing to do by my personal moral code
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I reserve... I reserve... I have a reservation... I HAVE a reservation.. What do you mean its not in the computer?
Adam wrote: The argument we had was that the machine would remove the sense of boredom from being happy 24/7 because boredom is a form of unhappiness and therefore it wouldnt let you feel it,
Oops gotta bit confused lol (Being blonde and all - kiding)
Adam wrote: It's driving me mad, because I think that I would quite like to be plugged into the machine, but i suspect that it isn't the right thing to do by my personal moral code
Surely continual pleasure would be boring, though? How can you appreciate the good things when you don't have the bad things to compare it to?
Life is all an illusion and is suffering so what if we're plugged into the stimulating 'machine' all along? Sorry i just went to a poetry reading at the english department and the poems were about Moths, dying from diabetes and ****ing blackberry picking.
Everyone in my tutorial thought I was a bit mad for saying that I'd like to be hooked up to it.
The way I see it this entire discussion is pointless, since, if you were hooked up to the machine you would be gauranteed continuous happiness, so any talk of it not being a 'real' life or eventual boredom or any of the other arguments that have been put forward are actually kinda worthless since, once you were attached to it, they wouldn't exist as valid because (I'm guessing) since you're garuanteed to be happy with your 'life' as it is when hooked up to the machine you wouldn't care.
Ok, that made more sense in my head.
Basically, the argument is worth it if you're not already hooked up to the machine, but I say **** 'em. Hook everyone up, then everyone's happy, the argument wouldn't exist in the first place and no one is any the wiser.
I think being plugged to the machine would make us forget about the pleasure we get from other people (both sexual and of other kinds). It would make us antisocial and irresponsive, because all we need would come from the machine.
Also, there's nothing more pleasurable than deserved or long-awaited pleasure, don't you think?
I'm with Chris on the liking to be miserable every once in a while. I think we could call it melancholia. I like feeling melancholic sometimes because it gives me a different perspective on my life. That said.... I hate the loneliness involved in melancholia.
It's all so complex I think we would actually BREAK the machine.
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'I've discovered the secret of life. A lot of hard work, a lot of sense of humor, a lot of joy and a whole lot of tra la la.' Kay Thompson
But we live in a society that needs maintaining. We wouldn't do anything but delighting in the pleasure coming from the machine and we would starve to death, not to say we'd stop going to work. I think we would all be dead pretty soon.
We'd die happy, though.
-- Edited by AlbyFC at 20:13, 2005-10-20
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'I've discovered the secret of life. A lot of hard work, a lot of sense of humor, a lot of joy and a whole lot of tra la la.' Kay Thompson
That raises a whole ****load of philosophy issues about whether it is ok to **** around all day with a pleasure machine whilst everyone else works, because as long as they dont feel like copying your idea, then everything works fine. I'm still in favour of it though, everyone else can run the country whilst I'm busy.
friend of mine mentined this question forget who it was now. well anyway. thats a point, it depends ont he state a person would be in while attached to the machine, if it simply grants pleasure, what of the physical needs of the body. it may be able to convince the mind your not hungry but the body still needs the food, or is this some machine that keeps you in your everyday concious state, but simply grants your mind any pleasure it wants.
as for getting bored of being pleasured all the time, i dont know. its possible you become accustomed to the feeling of pleasure, but since the machine is supposed to satify that, then it would simply adjust to satisfy that need in some way. kinda like a drug addiction, you need stonger stuff to have an effect maybe.
