I find it somewhat amusing that individuals want to venerate the model of virtue ethics developed by the Greeks where 80 percent of the population were slaves. Academics like Plato or Aristotle could have as many slaves as they could afford, indulge at will in the pleasures of the flesh, have their servants do all of the work while they sit around pondering the virtue ethics of "a good life", right?
Anyway, best of luck with your new project my old friend.....
Is this "satisfaction" versus "pleasure"? Strategy vs tactics? Age and experience vs youthful exuberance? In biological terms it's the knowledge that (e.g.) you've achieved the evolutionary prime directive (go forth and multiply)?
It's interesting that utilitarianism focuses on happiness rather than satisfaction.
I suggest happiness is a delta in maths terms, cos it doesn't persist, whatever makes you happy rapidly becomes the norm and you need a further improvement to create more happiness - if somebody gives you $100 you're happy for a while, but soon you're no longer especially happy but still have the $100.
Can we equate happiness to a change in satisfaction?
Interesting thought Malcolm. It sounds like you’re quite supportive of the feel good concept of welfare that I use as the motivation which drives conscious function. But in a sense you seem to be wondering if I’m not quite taking things far enough? For example I think you’re getting into what economists call “the law of diminishing marginal utility”. This is to say that if all else is held equal, the more goods and services that you consume, the less happiness you’ll get from each unit of a given type. So maybe things need to be ramped up somewhat — here happiness could be like velocity whereas satisfaction could be like acceleration? Let’s say someone were to give me a $100 gift per week. That would be great, though I may not be as happy with each gift down the line because later gifts should come to feel normal to me even if they are inflation adjusted. So maybe if someone were to increase that gift by an inflation adjusted 2% each week, then perhaps I’d continue to be similarly happy about it? Because the money increases perhaps this could be called “satisfaction” rather than just “happiness”? Apparently for these toy numbers, after a year the weekly gift would rise to $263, and after 10 years it would rise to $11,471 (according to Chatgpt4). Hmm… maybe beginning with 2% would work, though that should decline progressively over time so that at 10 years the weekly gift would be more like $600?
Anyway given the law of diminishing marginal utility, I agree that I’d need to make such a move if I were concerned about something that continues to feel just as good in the now as it does in the later. But actually here I’m not talking about what provides happiness, but rather just the happiness in itself. Or better yet, the value of existing whether positive or negative. Theoretically there is some ultimately quantifiable figure that constitutes how good/bad you feel each moment. If those figures were aggregated together over time, like for a given day, year, or your entire life, then theoretically each figure would constitute the value of existing as you for each of those periods. Life can be anywhere from wonderful to ridiculously horrible, so if we had figures like this then we could compare the value of existing between different periods in our own lives, or one person versus another, or versus a dog, or the average that exists in China versus America, and so on.
I think both pleasure and satisfaction drive motivation to produce what we call free will. The balance of the two may even be what drives delayed rewards ability.
Does it drive "conscious function"? Not sure what you mean by that but I don't think it drives self-awareness. But I suspect the biochemistry arose before self-awareness and must work for most varieties of philosophical zombie.
Congratulations Eric.
I find it somewhat amusing that individuals want to venerate the model of virtue ethics developed by the Greeks where 80 percent of the population were slaves. Academics like Plato or Aristotle could have as many slaves as they could afford, indulge at will in the pleasures of the flesh, have their servants do all of the work while they sit around pondering the virtue ethics of "a good life", right?
Anyway, best of luck with your new project my old friend.....
Is this "satisfaction" versus "pleasure"? Strategy vs tactics? Age and experience vs youthful exuberance? In biological terms it's the knowledge that (e.g.) you've achieved the evolutionary prime directive (go forth and multiply)?
It's interesting that utilitarianism focuses on happiness rather than satisfaction.
I suggest happiness is a delta in maths terms, cos it doesn't persist, whatever makes you happy rapidly becomes the norm and you need a further improvement to create more happiness - if somebody gives you $100 you're happy for a while, but soon you're no longer especially happy but still have the $100.
Can we equate happiness to a change in satisfaction?
Interesting thought Malcolm. It sounds like you’re quite supportive of the feel good concept of welfare that I use as the motivation which drives conscious function. But in a sense you seem to be wondering if I’m not quite taking things far enough? For example I think you’re getting into what economists call “the law of diminishing marginal utility”. This is to say that if all else is held equal, the more goods and services that you consume, the less happiness you’ll get from each unit of a given type. So maybe things need to be ramped up somewhat — here happiness could be like velocity whereas satisfaction could be like acceleration? Let’s say someone were to give me a $100 gift per week. That would be great, though I may not be as happy with each gift down the line because later gifts should come to feel normal to me even if they are inflation adjusted. So maybe if someone were to increase that gift by an inflation adjusted 2% each week, then perhaps I’d continue to be similarly happy about it? Because the money increases perhaps this could be called “satisfaction” rather than just “happiness”? Apparently for these toy numbers, after a year the weekly gift would rise to $263, and after 10 years it would rise to $11,471 (according to Chatgpt4). Hmm… maybe beginning with 2% would work, though that should decline progressively over time so that at 10 years the weekly gift would be more like $600?
Anyway given the law of diminishing marginal utility, I agree that I’d need to make such a move if I were concerned about something that continues to feel just as good in the now as it does in the later. But actually here I’m not talking about what provides happiness, but rather just the happiness in itself. Or better yet, the value of existing whether positive or negative. Theoretically there is some ultimately quantifiable figure that constitutes how good/bad you feel each moment. If those figures were aggregated together over time, like for a given day, year, or your entire life, then theoretically each figure would constitute the value of existing as you for each of those periods. Life can be anywhere from wonderful to ridiculously horrible, so if we had figures like this then we could compare the value of existing between different periods in our own lives, or one person versus another, or versus a dog, or the average that exists in China versus America, and so on.
I think both pleasure and satisfaction drive motivation to produce what we call free will. The balance of the two may even be what drives delayed rewards ability.
Does it drive "conscious function"? Not sure what you mean by that but I don't think it drives self-awareness. But I suspect the biochemistry arose before self-awareness and must work for most varieties of philosophical zombie.