James, are you seriously considering comparing so called “positive” and “negative” electrical charges to human concepts like agony and joy?
There is absolutely no logical connection between them, and it would be a folly to do so based on nomenclature alone.
Having said that, if life IS suffering, why is suffering negative? Because of our perception of it?
Also, since a Choice has been made to see and label things based on psychological effect on us, joy can also be described not only as overcoming aspect of struggle (life), but also evading it. Many do so now, they avoid (psychologically or otherwise) the struggle and call their psychological state happiness or joy, or living in peace. A somewhat similar example would be a coward who evades a conflict (or runs away from war) and calls his cowardice self-love, a positive and superior choice. It is a play of selective wordage. So when you say joy needs to be a superior principle, you’re also promoting cowardly behavior and the pursuit of shortcuts. If joy trumps agony then any choice that leads to it is the superior choice, even if it attempts to detour struggle.
Joy cannot be superior to agony because struggle is a fundamental principle, just like a bird cannot enjoy moments of effortless gliding without learning to fly first. Because joy is dependent on suffering it cannot be superior, or ruling principle.
And this is what is happening today with technological advancement, which, at this rate, will likely lead to our own extinction.
But this also touches on another point which I meant to address in a separate thread, and that is the idea of maximum potential limit, as it applies to nations, or civilizations. It seems that all civilizations have a defined apex, or a maximum potential limit, after which the civilization or order begins to fall apart. So, what exactly were the builders thinking in regards to their descendants, while approaching the apex period, or the golden age? Naturally, I’m guessing, they wanted their children and grandchildren to enjoy the fruits of their labor and live in peace and prosperity. But how many generations did they think it would last before their own descendants became soft and weak only to be conquered by another rising nation? Do people reproducing during the apex period, or golden age, ever think of long term consequences of their own success, or do they only imagine short term happiness of their descendants for a handful of generations down the line? This seems to be the case, historically.
Evasion is one of the ways of attaining your goals. If you want to resolve a conflict, but you’re not ready for it, you must evade it. Why? Because you are not ready for it. You must prepare for it. You don’t have what it takes to resolve it. So you must first acquire whatever it takes to resolve it. The reason why people look down upon evasion – normal people, at least – is because it indicates that the person is not prepared for the task. It means that the person is not on your level. It means the person is less developed than you are. It’s a value judgment. Nothing else.
I am not “considering” it. I have been doing it for years.
Well, you would find yourself quite wrong about that … once you studied up on it.
Who said that?
The pursuit of joy over the pursuit of agony seems pretty obviously a superior principle for life. Producing agony is pretty easy for anyone. I seriously don’t see the advantage in doing so.
Haha. Yeah, For that type maybe that enjoys cowardice.
But that doesn’t exist. Cowardice is just suffering trying to minimize itself. To a seriously depraved being that might appear like joy… but that is really sad.
I am led to think you have never experienced joy, if you think cowardice is joy. But I suspect that you are just being a bit sophistic, pandi.
Intellectually lazy humans are so far, far less wise than rodents.
No, suffering is a derivative of joy.
They are certainly not equal opposites.
But this is our basic disagreement.
Ive always been saying existence isn’t symmetrical, and the law of identity doesn’t apply at its core. But thats so many paradigms up the ladder of advanced thinking that from this site these concepts are unapproachable like Betelgeuze.
Suffering is a derivative of want or desire, not of joy. If you don’t believe that, provide contrary evidence to support your assertion. How does the end product of joy itself cause suffering? It seems to me that there is certainly suffering that arises without joy having been present.
Positives and negatives are never perfectly equal. That isn’t the issue. They are exact opposites, meaning that more of either is necessarily less of the other.
So agony cannot be “a form of joy” any more than short is a form of tall. Short and tall are forms of height. Joy and suffering are forms of consequence-of-effort.
Suffering is a chemical feeling. There are several different types of chemical feelings associated with suffering. One of them is the feeling of not having what one wants. However, if one does not know what wants, that can also be suffering.
Also, it would be ridiculous to say that my “want of not wanting my foot to be electrocuted” is whats causing the suffering. It is not the “want or desire to not be electrocuted” which causes the suffering, but the electrocution itself.
The chemistry is the hardware of the mind’s software. It is the mechanism, not the instigation. As the mind and emotions are inspired to sway, so goes the chemistry that allows for the sway.
One can also sway the chemistry first and cause a sway of emotion or even mind. That would be the same as toying with the physical transistors within a computer so as to alter the program results. One who takes drugs is puring coffee onto his motherboard so as to get visions on his screen and excite his drive.
Emotion is the inspiration. Chemistry is the mechanism.
Causality is somewhat of an illusion, however I’d have to say the root dependency is the chemicals. Without the right chemicals, you cannot have the right emotions.
What you are saying only makes sense because, your thoughts can change what chemicals that are applied, but it is still at the root level the chemicals which decide your emotions.
Okay, James, let me ask you this first. How is a particle which GAINS electrons become “negatively” charged, and he one that loses them become “positive”? On what logical basis is a loss of electrons associated with “positive”, and vice versa?
Magnus, you’re justifying cowardice. Evading is not overcoming. But to be fair enough, I want to provide context for my claim. One of the criticisms of Syrian refugees (the young men, in particular), was that they were not staying back and fighting for their country. The major circulating counter-argument was “its not even my war, and Syrian people have nothing even to do with it”. Okay, that just sounds like cop out argument to me. Is it not also your land, and what is your relationship to your land, anyway? How does adversity or challenge even relate to who you are?
This is another problem with the culture of individuality and hedonism. Everybody is only thinking about “me” and thinking only short-term gains.
What is it that we are overcoming?
We are overcoming whatever is resisting our efforts to achieve our goals.
If you want to get closer to achieving your goals you have to choose the path that will get you closer to achieving your goals more than any other path.
We use intelligence in order to predict how much closer we will get to achieve our goals if we were to go down this or that path.
Sometimes, it is the path of evasion (the longer path.)
Sometimes, it is the path of confrontation (the shorter path.)
It’s not one or the other.
It’s not that simple.
Note that this is a fallible process.
We assume what’s going to happen based on our experience.
What we think is the best path might in fact be the worst path.
And vice versa.
That’s value judgment.
You simply don’t like these people.
This is true since serotonin for example is responsible for mood and a lack of it can lead to depression
Although from a general perspective states of mind are regarded as more psychological than chemical
For instance when I take my meds my thoughts are negative sounding words and phrases, but the chemicals make it feel not so bad.
Like I could think “Im gonna die tommorow” but if my chemicals are good it will feel good.
I think that I just said that same thing, although with the exception of expressing that it is irrelevant.
The US Constitution is merely chemicals. If you change the chemicals, you change the laws for millions of people. So the government is merely chemicals.
That is what you are saying. And in a short-sighted materialistic sense, that is right. But some would rightfully say that the Constitution is far more than merely a bunch of chemicals, even though by changing the chemicals, one could change what the Constitution says. Likewise, a human brain is far more than merely the chemicals by which it functions.
It is not the composite chemicals that makes the US Constitution what it is, despite the physical dependency. And it is not the composite chemicals of the brain that make the mind what it is, regardless of the physical dependency.
I am not seeing the relevance of your question, so I am probably not going to give the answer that you are looking for. And I am having to guess at exactly what you mean by “on what logical basis…”
Electrons are called “negative” somewhat arbitrarily. They could have been called “positive”, in which case we would be thinking in terms of positrons flowing to make electric current and negatons being at the center of atoms. Very technically, the words “positive and negative” have a little more specific meaning, but they are somewhat arbitrarily assigned.
Similarly, “a positive influence on a child” currently has a specific meaning, but if the language was different, the words “a negative influence on a child” could mean that same thing. It is merely lexicon assignment.
Similar holds true for economics. Positive refers to stronger economy and to more money while negative refers to weaker economy and to lesser money. But the words could have been reversed.
In general “positive” implies something lending toward greater; e.g. more helpful, larger, higher, stronger, brighter. And “negative” implies the opposite, lending to being more destructive, lesser, lower, weaker, or darker. And in view of desires, “positive” implies something favoring, increasing the hope of a goal whereas “negative” implies disfavoring, decreasing the hope of gaining a goal, or threatening the goal.
But as every philosopher knows, what is positive toward one thing is negative toward something else. A positively charged economy might mean the loss of your individual money if you “sold short” your stock. Positive and negative are RELATIVE to a neutral balance reference. Negative things can be used for a positive goal and vsvrsa, depending on the preferred balance at the time. What are positive influences at one time might be negative at a different time, depending on the preferred balance.
In physics the same is true - above the ambient normal, neutral balance is called “positive” and below is called “negative”. But the ambient normal, neutral balance of what? Without the concept of Affectance, physics is stuck without an answer and concluding that it is entirely arbitrary and that there is no up or down except in the relative sense and that positive is merely different than negative although magically related somehow. The topic of Affectance Ontology explains precisely how and why they are related. And the relation is that which lends toward an increase in affectance from the ambient is what physicists have always been calling “positive charge potential”. And that lends toward a decrease in ambient affectance is what they have always been calling “negative charge potential”. Electrons are a tiny bundles of the taking away of the ambient normal, neutral balance of space while positrons (or protons) are bundles of increasing the ambient normal, neutral balance of space.
Thusly are assigned positive and negative “particles”. And once such vernacular is assigned, it is maintained throughout the construction rhetoric of more complex structures, such as molecules and ions.
To your specific question concerning an ion, although still not seeing the relevance, an atom that loses one of its negative particles is inherently more positively charged (ie has more increasing of the ambient neutral balance). And an atom that gains more negative particles is inherently more negatively charged, having more decreasing of the ambient neutral balance. Thusly are assigned “positive and negative ions”.
I suspect that you want to know what all of that has to do with positive and negative affectance upon mind, ie hope and threat.
Conscious mind’s function entirely by virtue of their perception of hope and/or threat toward instinctive goals, “PHT”. Anything that lends toward a goal is called a “hope” and in common vernacular is referred to as “positive … toward that goal”, a “positive hope potential”. And of course the reverse, detracting away from a goal is called a “negative” and in common vernacular, “a threat … to that goal”, a “negative hope potential”.
The common thread in concept between the use in physics and the mind is merely the increasing of status quo or decreasing of status quo, positive or negative. But in more complex situations, as we all know, what is increasing for one, is a decreasing for another. So it all depends upon a reference - the ambient normal, neutral balance.
One could say states of mind are primarily electrical because of the firing of neurons or primarily atomic because
of the structure of the brain. Even though neither of these really describe them as they are generally understood
So simply because a description of something is true does not mean it best describes the phenomenon in question
