Okay, this is based on a debate me and my friends once had that started with a discussion of some experiments we learned about in an introductory psychology class. The experiments involved lab rats in little cages with electrodes wired into the hypothalamus (pleasure center) of their brains and attached to little levers within the cage. When the rats hit the lever, their pleasure centers were stimulated. If I remember correctly the rats would die of thirst, hunger, or exhaustion because they would disregard all other activities (even vital ones) in favor of continually hitting their pleasure lever. Although I couldn’t find any decent sources during my lunch hour, I’ve also heard that similar experiments have been performed on human beings, which is what led me and my friends to debate.
“What if everyone was equipped with a convenient little neural implant that would grant them euphoric pleasure at the push of a button?” we asked. In order to simplify the hypothetical situation (by removing the need for a surgical implant), we changed the scenario to a miracle drug that stimulated the pleasure center with no side effects, and nick-named it the “Perfect Drug.” To simplify even further (by eliminating the need to produce, sell, buy, and use a physical drug), we changed the scenario to make the Perfect Drug into a sort of meditation technique that elicits euphoric pleasure. So, for discussion’s sake, here are the defining characteristics of the Perfect Drug:
Elicits a pure euphoric emotional state.
Not actually a “drug,” more like a meditation technique or mental exercise.
The mental exercise is simple, effortless, and universally known and performable by all human beings. (Don’t ask how)
The euphoric state can be stopped and started at will.
Effectiveness of the euphoric state does not diminish with continued use of the Perfect Drug. (A person cannot develop a tolerance)
There are no direct harmful effects of the Perfect Drug, only potential indirect harm by continued use (i.e. forgetting to sleep, drink, and eat due to preoccupation with the Perfect Drug.)
So, now the questions:
How would individual people react to the Perfect Drug? Would people indeed become PD junkies, disregarding their basic needs for uninterrupted flow of blissful feelings? Would observers of PD addiction, who had not tried the mental exercise yet themselves, be disgusted at the overpowering effect of PD and try to resist using it? Would they be able to?
Would people be able to stop using PD once they’d tried it? Could people bear living normal life, complete with pain, fear, and unfulfilled desire, when they’d experienced pure bliss via PD and knew how easy it would be to return to it? Would some people be able to use PD moderately and balance its use with their daily lives?
How would human civilization be affected by the existence of PD? Would every man, woman, and child eventually try PD and never want to go back? Would Humanity’s lifespan be reduced to however long it took the world’s population to die of thirst or hunger due to obsession with PD?
What do we mean when we refer to happiness? Is it just a matter of brain chemistry, or is there something more? If happiness is just brain chemistry, what would distinguish pure happiness from PD? Is happiness subjective or objective?
Suppose people broke into two groups: PD-users and PD-abstainers. PD-users live for a few days or maybe a week of incredible, blissful feelings while ignoring their jobs, children, and personal health. PD-abstainers live out a normal lifespan, are more or less responsible, raise children, etc. Could the PD-abstainers ever be as happy as the PD-users? Is there more to life than happiness?
Pleasure isn’t happiness and pleasant emotions are not irrelevant tasty little bon-bons to be snacked upon.
Given the choice of being wired up in that fashion (or drugged up in that fashion, or whatever) or being executed via a shot to the head, I’d go for the bullet.
What do you mean pleasure isn’t happiness? I agree they are not exactly synonymous, but certainly they’re related. Perhaps you mean that pleasure is more of a base, physical reaction whereas happiness is a higher-level emotion?
If that’s what you mean (and forgive me if it’s not), then I would say that whether or not a person is happy depends on the frequency and quality of pleasurable experiences. For example, if you find conversation pleasurable, and you are able to engage in good conversations often, you’re likely to be happy. If your life is devoid of good conversation, you’re likely to be unhappy. Can you think of a way for someone to be happy without experiencing pleasure?
Pleasure is just a biochemical reaction in your brain to some stimuli such as a reading a good book or having your back massaged. If the Perfect Drug can trigger the same biochemical reaction (bring you pleasure), then how can one make you happy and not the other?
Also, you say you wouldn’t want to be wired up or drugged up in that fashion, but as I described it, the Perfect Drug is no more invasive than meditation (although I refer to it as the Perfect Drug, which is admittedly misleading.) So if you could just do a little mental exercise and taste pure, uninhibited pleasure, would you really shoot yourself instead?
It’s be similar to heroin. Some people would become junkies. Some would try it once or twice and quit. Some would steer clear all together for the reasons you mention.
[QUOTE=Corporate Hippie}
2. Would people be able to stop using PD once they’d tried it? Could people bear living normal life, complete with pain, fear, and unfulfilled desire, when they’d experienced pure bliss via PD and knew how easy it would be to return to it? Would some people be able to use PD moderately and balance its use with their daily lives?[/QUOTE]
Again, it’d be similar to other drugs already out there. Sure, people could stop. But not everyone. Similar to alcoholics who don’t know when to stop. Some have addiction tendencies. Others not so much. Being buzzed on beer sure beats going to work every day. But self control and other priorities/responsibilities makes sure I’m not drunk 24-7.
We already have plenty of heroin,crack,and meth addicts wandering the streets. It’s affordable, it’s accesiible, it’s a great high, not everyone is hooked.
Different people want different things to be happy. Once your basic happy needs are met (not hungry, not in pain), people crave different forms of happiness. Sex, fame, money, love, contentment, adventure, accomplishment.
Ask Joe Heroin User versus Sally Suburban Soccer Mom. Different strokes for different folks and everyone inbetween.
That’s true, but the Perfect Drug as I described is an idealized form of the real illicit drugs that we have today. Heroin, crack, meth, and any other existing narcotic come with a whole host of problems: health risks, illegality, dangerous means of acquirement, social stigma, and yet people still go to enormous lengths to get their fix. I purposely made my make-believe drug free of as many of these deterrents as possible (even the requirement to actually “take” a drug), to strip it down to the issue of human nature and instant gratification.
I think the proposition of a “perfect high” would be far more tempting for a lot more people than you think. I mean, take for example a legal, socially acceptable drug like alcohol. Tons of people use it to feel good; what if it made you feel really good, didn’t cost anything, could last as long as you wanted, and never made you puke or get hung-over?
Well, how about the “perfect high” of maturbating. It’s free, harmless, legal, and is a pretty good high.
Some people can get pretty obsessive about it but most give it it’s time and place and control it pretty well.
Pleasure has a purpose. Emotions are cognitions. The purpose of feelings (pleasant and unpleasant) is to guide you in how you live. I have nothing against getting a good buzz on now and then but if one tries to live for the next high, it tends to fall far short of happiness. To come up with something that outstrips what a conventional-drug “good buzz” does, to directly trip all the pleasure centers, would probably permanently foul up one’s ability to assess the quality of one’s life.
I hate to sound like some kind of rigid fundamentalist, but it’s an abomination and yes I would rather be dead than addicted to that kind of dead and empty pleasure.
What do you mean, feelings guide you how to live? I would agree to that in the sense that when you do something that causes you to feel pain it “guides” you not to do it again and when something causes you pleasure it’s “guiding” you to do it more (i.e. positive and negative stimuli), but I’m not sure that’s what you mean.
This sounds like you’re still referring to traditional, existing drugs. The imaginary Perfect Drug I’m proposing gives the option to constantly be “high,” so there is no scrounging around for a fix. More than that, it’s a neverending source of pleasure. If anything, it’s not being on the Perfect Drug that runs the risk of falling short of happiness.
I totally agree however that the Perfect Drug would “permanently foul up one’s ability to assess the quality of one’s life.” As I mentioned in my OP, a very likely possibility would be someone dying of hunger or thirst because they’re simply too euphoric to care. Naturally, the ability to evaluate their life would be of little consequence to them as well.
I respect you opinion that the Perfect Drug is an abomination, and although I am entertaining the notion (really as an effort to examine what happiness really is), I’d probably be terrified to try it myself. I’m curious though, are you coming at this from a religious or spiritual perspective? Is that what you meant by emotions being “guidance”?
Haha, I haven’t actually, but I will now. Thanks for tuning me in to this!
Exactly. While using the Perfect Drug, or experiencing hedonistic bliss, or however you want to say it, a lot of our elaborate (and somewhat lofty, I’d say) concepts of good pleasure vs. bad pleasure would take a back seat to the more direct route to gratification. By that I mean, rather than deriving pleasure by living how you feel is morally right because you’ve learned to take pleasure in living in that way, you bypass the learned behavior and cut straight to the direct impetus for pleasurable feelings: the biochemical reaction itself.
Not only would you not recognize it as an empty pleasure, you wouldn’t care.
I don’t really have anything to add to this debate yet (maybe I’ll jump in tomorrow), but I just wanted to give you credit for the term “pleasure lever”. Although, it brings a slightly different image to my mind than what you’re talking about.
Because unhappiness fulfills a purpose. Unhappy because you have no money and can’t keep a roof over your head or care for your kids? Secure a job and fix the problem. Then you’re less unhappy. You’ve also got the bonus of a place to live, and food to eat. Perhaps you can use this method to feed your hungry children at the same time.
Or push the lever, and annihilate your unhappiness without addressing the things that are making you unhappy. You starve to death in your own excrement, but happily. Your children are taken in by slave traffickers or eaten by wild wombats.
The goal in life, at least form an evolutionary standpoint (which has been operative for billions of years longer than any human life goals) is to raise successful offspring. If one can have fun while doing it, well then that’s just icing on the cake.
Rather unhappiness necessitates goals, whose fulfillment can then putatively get rid of it.
But you have addressed them. Instead of framing your ‘problems’ in a social and psychological framework, you have framed them in neurobiological terms and indeed addressed them. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have annihilated unhappiness. And human civilization or rather persons have addressed them in psychological and social terms, because that’s what we’ve known and managed. It’s in the last 50-100 years that a neurological understanding has developed, which is still in its rudimentary stage. If, and when, the logic of the substrate becomes clear, we can invoke a new paradigm to deal with our malaise.
Not if everyone (& thing) gets the drug.
Evolution doesn’t dictate any goals. It’s just a tautological narrative to the effect: those lineages that sustain, do sustain.
But all of this misses the point. Happiness is a vague term, probably because it’s not such a common experience. We have some basic distinctions of the varieties of happiness, such as bliss, euphoria, ecstasy, eudaimonia, satisfaction, pleasantness, relief…etc, but still no clear conception. Maybe some varieties of induced happiness may be acceptable even to paleohumanists.
Ok. Let’s say we restrict usage of the Perfect Drug to those who have succesfully raised children, or to those who are biologically incapable of having children. What then? It could be a perfect retirement plan.
Modern surgery would not be possible if not for three discoveries. Anaesthetics, an understanding of anatomy/physiology and an understanding of infection.
There are some people who can’t feel pain, and as a result they usually die young. I remember reading a story about a girl who had endless broken bones and skin infections because she couldn’t feel the pain necessary to keep her physical body intact. Once she heard some kids playing outside and leaned out the window, and after a few minutes realized she had placed her hands on a radiator and there were third degree burns everywhere.
However, to assume that the creation of anaesthetics will somehow equate a world where people put their hands on radiators and not know it is patently false. We have had anaesthetics for about 160 years, without them we couldn’t practice surgery. We also have a variety of ways to deal with chronic pain including surgery and medications. These can cause problems, but they beat out the alternative of doing nothing about pain. The point is there is a gigantic difference in having no physical sensation and just controlling your physical sensations because it will improve quality of life. We have had the ability to control pain for over a century and it hasn’t created a society without physical pain.
Some people feel unhappy because they can’t keep a roof over the head, but even that is to a good degree genetic. Happiness/sadness is about 60% genetic, so if you take three different people and make both of them unemployed one will be suicidally unhappy because the event causes him to snap, one will be unhappy and the third probably won’t be bothered much by it. As it stands unhappiness/happiness is to a good degree deviated from the world around us as it is based on genetic filters.
There is also the fact that happiness increases problem solving skills, and that happy people make better mates, better parents, better employees, make more money and are more sexually desirable. So happiness itself is to a good degree a cure to not having a roof over your head or not having kids, it is a chicken/egg phenomena. True, to a degree happiness is due to a good life but a good life is also due to being happy.
What you desire already exists, and is meditated on by many. It has many names and many ways of achieving it. The is spiritual in nature and consists of connecting to the prime force, or Oneness of the Universe. You can’t get addicted to it, because once you attain it the desire lessens. Sort of like a way to charge your batteries every once in a while.
Here is one way it can happen, there are many others.
I remember a class on this being taught to drug addicts, to help them break the habit.
