LogFAQs > #956325317

adjl posted...

That's not remotely true. There's a very substantial range of "good" beyond "I can briefly forget how miserable I am." You don't need to be sad to enjoy happy; happy is intrinsically enjoyable.

I never used the word misery, negative can refer to any harm no matter how slight. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, bowel and bladder distention, even a mere itch can be seen as negative. Once again I ask you for a list of what you consider intrinsically enjoyable so I can break it down for you.

Another facet here (not the one about brain states that you've ignored) is that people are known to be bad judges of the quality of their lives because of various psychological mechanisms. One is called Pollyannaism, or the general bent towards optimism humanity has, another is the high adaptability of humanity. People can become accustomed to nearly any situation, things that they might have said they would rather die than go through a few years before finding themselves in such a situation. The point I'm making is that people tend not to realize how much negativity is in their lives to begin with and from that point they still evaluate themselves higher than their peers would. This has to be taken into account when discussing how positive or negative a life is which was the orginal focus of this reply chain.

Mad_Max posted...

TC has been wrong throughout the entire topic. Nothing they've posted is well thought-out or sensible.

What an amazing counter argument, I now see the error of my ways /s