Is there any other meaning beside pleasure and pain?

Question

I am starting to believe that everything meaningful can be reduced to appropriate degrees of pain and pleasure. For example, nature is meaningful because it is pleasurable to the senses, it provides food (pleasure), and it destroys (pain).

First, some assumptions:

1. There is no god. There is no spirit.
2. Even if there was, we cannot understand it.
3. We cannot really believe if one action is truly preferable to another (outside of pain/pleasure)
4. Secular morality based on hard rules are impossible.

Answer 1

You could be right, because everything is experienced and we rate those experiences in terms of how we feel. I think you can look at the world a number of different ways, though. I have another one for you (slightly tongue-in-cheek) that my husband often says: Life is a series of filling and emptying holes. Think about it...!

Answer 2

Pleasure and pain are not really a meaning are they, they are names we give to sensations within the physical body. Yes/no? We find for some reason that most are drawn to pleasure, and most dislike pain. (Speaking of physical pain here not mental).
This in itself is a curious situation to find oneself in, where we actually choose the one against the other, even when we KNOW that both will be present within a life time. We can not escape from either even if we wanted to. The pain body as the Buddhists call it. Does pain and pleasure have a purpose? This is the BIG QUESTION which has led philosophers over centuries to question the meaning of it all, and spiritual ones to seek out an escape!! Is there a God of pain and pleasure. (Shiva!) Does he enjoy our pains and pleasures? These are the fundemental questions that mainly pain has brought in to our consciousness, (the mind). Is there an escape from pain and suffering? Certain paths bring relief from the mental pains we cause ourselves, and a certain amount of control over the physical pain body. A Buddhist can set himself on fire fearlessly to bring about his own death! Samuri Warriors again fearless in the face of their own dieing. This is witnessed by all and reveared as something desireable to attain for the self. To have NON FEAR of pain and death. This is a desired state by many if not all if only they thought about it. How do these ones attain this ability? By travelling the spiritual path of learning. No Science has ever given us freedom of all pain. They try, but they haven't succeeded. We keep searching for the escape, or the meaning of pain. Maybe this is the reason for pain and pleasure, to cause us to seek out the solutions to life itself. To move more towards the pleasure, a cleaner, safer, environment, and move away from the more dangerous and painful environments of fast moving machinary and hard surfaces.
Just a thought. A spongy environment of mosses and grasses, sand and oceans would be a lot safer, but would that be just a bit to boring for us all?

Answer 3

However, morality is also based on the property that there are other people in this world.

Besides pleasure and pain, could you honestly chose to live a meaningless live and ignore the rest of the world as if it has no bearing on you what-so-ever?

That is the most relevant question.

Answer 4

Your assessment is quite correct as are your assumptions. Or, to borrow a concept from Buddhism applicable here,"All beings strive to avoid suffering; all beings strive to achieve pleasure." Secular morality can be based upon hard rules, but it can depend on the nature of the rules. Hard and fast "Thou Shalts" really don't work in the modern world, but general guidelines such as "Be kind to yourself and others to the best of your ability" are quite flexible and can adapt to most any situation.

Answer 5

I share the sentiment.

To respond to the answerers:
1) those assumptions are fair
2) pain/pleasure is individual, there's no need to define what it is for all people.
3) greed is not as pleasurable as the alternative.

Answer 6

I think that you pretty much got the jist of what it all boils down to. When you think about any organism on earth basically they simply try to do whatever they feel will maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

Answer 7

No, according to your assumptions, there is no meaning outside simple pleasure-fulfillment and pain-avoidance. And that is pretty pitiful.

Answer 8

It isn't that simple. And even from pleasurable things comes pain. Who are you to define what things go in which of your two catagories? And people have different opinions. But I can see that you take time to think... :) Keep it up. Maybe you could answer my question for me too and it will give me pleasure, lol
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=Akwn4DfjbWfkmbM0Fn8zS_4ezKIX?qid=20060807224349AAdlXXn

Answer 9

Have some more assumptions and you'll have figured everything out

Answer 10

omg...do you have a life outside of Yahoo Answers......*yawn*