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The Philosophy of Hedonism · Think Twice Show

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When you hear the word hedonism, you might think of chaos, sex,
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drugs, excess, but at its core hedonism is a very simple idea.
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Pleasure is good, pain is bad, and morally speaking you should
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maximise your pleasure and minimise your pain.
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The earliest champions of this idea were Aristopus and
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Epicurus. They both agreed that pleasure
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was the ultimate good, it just took different paths to get
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there. Aristopus chased immediate
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gratification, while Epicurious saw a more tranquil, sustainable
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pleasure based in friendship and community.
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You might not be out partying every night like Aristopus, but
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let's be honest, you probably still organise your free time
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around pleasure. Whenever you pick up a book,
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meet your friends, or play a sport, you do so in pursuit of
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pleasure. And what's so bad about that?
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But at the same time, the world around us is full of pain and
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suffering, war and poverty are everywhere, and the climate is
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crumbling before our very eyes. In a world like that, why the
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fuck are we even talking about pleasure?
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Welcome to fix W my name is Benz.
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My name is Santa. And today we're discussing, as
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you would know, one of my favourite things, hedonism.
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Pleasure. So to the first question, is
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hedonism egoistic? It is.
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Hedonism is egoistic and and the reason why I say that is that
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it's a moral framework that thinks about what's good for the
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individual. The whole point of hedonism is
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to assess what is good for an individual.
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Obviously the answer in hedonism is pleasure.
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Pleasure is good and what is pleasurable is always good.
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But yeah, to me, I don't think there's a a framework beyond the
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individual there. So by definition itself is like
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it assesses the self rather than anything beyond the self.
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Yes, obviously Mars is known, and I actually think I have a
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real concrete steel argument. I, I, I genuinely, I don't know
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how you're going to get. Like.
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Because this is so like obvious to me that I actually thought
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when I, when I was writing this, this, this, this question, I was
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like, I don't even know if we're going to disagree.
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I thought maybe I need to tweak the question to create a
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discussion. I thought you were going to be
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on my side, if anything, if I'm honest.
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But anyhow, the reason why I don't think it's egoistic is
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because people can generate pleasure from other people's
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pleasure from helping other people.
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I generate pleasure, right? And we understand that humans
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are. Social creatures, sure.
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And care about others and find pleasure in other people's
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pleasure. Therefore, it's not egoistic to
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find pleasure in that sort of way.
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The only do you want me to respond 1 by 1 I I?
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I can, I can, I can continue OK. Let me just jot that down for a
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little, Yeah, OK. And if we understand like there
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are two types of pleasure, there are sort of like long term sort
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of pleasure with like fulfilment contentment closer to
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Epicureanism. Sure.
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And we have fleeting pleasures and that's sort of by Aristopus
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and he was sort of a philosopher under Socrates and, and
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essentially the creator of headnism.
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He advocated for not thinking about long term consequences and
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thinking about short term pleasure and immediate
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gratification. And we all sort of accept that
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that that is wrong because if you only if you don't think
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about long term consequences and you think about immediate
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gratification, you're essentially not measuring your
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pleasure correctly. Over the right time frame
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exactly. Over the right time frame.
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And the issue that comes from that, more so is if hedonism is
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considered egoistic, it would be related to fleeting pleasures.
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And I'd argue your moral code is broken because if we look at
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philosophies and we look at philosophies or even something
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like religion, the idea was to give your meet your life
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meaning. That is the purpose of all of
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philosophies. It's the purpose of religion is
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to find meaning in life and and to.
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Live a good life. Exactly.
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Or find meaning in life and hedonism suggests that finding
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and living a good life is to find pleasure, which is the
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ultimate good. So if we apply a broken moral
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code to anything that gives life meaning, so for example
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religion, you see how much harm religion can cause.
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You wouldn't say religion is the issue.
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You you, you can apply a a broken moral framework to
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nationalism and nationalism isn't the issue, isn't
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inherently the issue Hedonism isn't inherently the issue.
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Therefore it's it's the moral, it's the broken moral code
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that's the issue, not the actual.
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Philosophy, that's the problem. OK, I got you.
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I got you. I understand your argument, I
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guess. No, that that was pretty good.
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That was pretty good. I'm not going to lie, that was
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better than I thought. I thought I thought you'd come
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up with because you're you're arguing a very tough position.
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You're defending a tough position in my in my view.
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I guess I disagree though that when I say egoistic I don't mean
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it's egoistic in the sense that someone is completely self
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absorbed with fleeting pleasure right?
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I think you can be self centred and pursue intellectual and
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things that will give you pleasure long term.
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What I'm saying is that even also in the example you gave
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about helping other people, when you help other people you in
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your you derive pleasure from that.
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It still judges the morality of helping the person by your own
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individual pleasure. Does that make sense?
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It's not. It's not looking at the the
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morality of the action outside of yourself.
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But are we, are we accepting? Egoistic is sort of self
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indulgent, self interested, self absorbed.
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Is that what we're accepting? It is.
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Self absorbed and self indulgent might be a bit strong for me but
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like maybe that's where we disagree about the word
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egoistic. I guess for me it's like self
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centred is the is the key thing is about the self.
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Anything outside of the self is secondary.
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No, see, I I don't I. Don't see I'm looking at it more
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like from AI. Guess a philosophical
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categorisation like there there are certain philosophies that
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look at, for example utilitarianism.
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It's about the greatest good for the most amount of people.
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I would struggle to say that's egoistic because you're you're,
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you have to consider how other people impacted by a certain
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action when you're judging morality.
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But hedonism is about yourself. It's about how much pleasure you
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derive from something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So that's egoistic. No, it's self centred.
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If we understand that humans are social creatures, right?
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So I care about your pleasure too.
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Your pleasure directly impacts my pleasure.
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But what about when it doesn't? What about when it doesn't?
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When does helping someone become pointless from a hedonistic
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point of view? When it doesn't derive pleasure
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for yourself. Let's say for example, you're
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trying to help someone who's in need.
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Let's just take a, a sibling or something, right?
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A family member. You are trying to help them.
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They're refusing your help. They seem to be annoyed that
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you're trying to help them, but you continue to help them
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anyway. That is a is a negative
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experience helping them. It doesn't you, you don't derive
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pleasure from that because they might be crossing you out or
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something, but you continue to help them and you help them
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because it's the right thing to do, not because you derive
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pleasure from it. But would a head on this then
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turn around and be like, I I'm going to help you yet then
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because it doesn't derive pleasure for me.
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You see what I'm saying? What the moment you stop
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deriving pleasure from helping someone, do you then just stop
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helping someone? Well.
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Again, pleasure's like quite complex and if if we were to
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take that example and I I assume the reason why you help them is
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because you care about them, right, That that would be
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logical. And so you're trying to achieve
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pleasure by helping this family member of yours.
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And so you're in the pursuit of pleasure, even though you might
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not be able to achieve it right at that moment, you are in
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pursuit of it. And that is that is the goal, to
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be in pursuit of pleasure. That is the ultimate good.
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But let's say it doesn't work. Well, at the end it doesn't
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work. Yeah, we don't.
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See, pleasure, we don't ever get the pleasure like would a heaven
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is not look at that and think under your framework and think
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that was a waste of time because you never derived the pleasure.
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Yeah, you had the expectations. How successful?
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So was it? Was it, was it not pointless
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then under your framework? Because you didn't the right,
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you didn't the right pleasure for me.
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That's not pointless because you don't know the outcome of your
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pursuit of pleasure before you undertake that pursuit.
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Sure. So it's it's not pointless, but
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like it was unsuccessful when the mission.
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OK, so let me put it, let me put it even more extreme terms.
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A successful mission like that, helping a family member versus
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an unsuccessful one, does the morality change?
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Is one more good than the other? Is your initial action more good
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if it works? Yes.
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That's crazy. That's mad.
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What we're we're happier. I've I've helped you.
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Yes, I'm happier and you're happier.
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We've both derived pleasure from this.
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That has to be more good. I'm talking about the action,
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the initial action when you don't know whether it's going to
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work or not. Yeah, surely you just do that
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because it's the right thing to do.
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You're skirting around, you're trying to avoid a non hedonistic
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view I'm trying to get you to see.
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No, but I'm trying to get you to understand that the final goal
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is pleasure though. So like, even if you're helping
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when you don't want to, it's because of pleasure.
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So there's no part of that action work that you're doing
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because of the right thing to do out of duty, for example, duty
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to your, to your sibling. But you see.
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Because I had, I had, Dennis would say pleasure is the only
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good. But you but you see that that
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feeling of duty when you, when you achieve a task, say
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something that maybe you didn't really want to do.
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Do you, do you receive pleasure from having that task completed?
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I'd argue yes, Yes, but. When you assess, when you
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assess, what do I do now, before I know the consequence?
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What do you do in the moment? Like you don't know where, but
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like what the consequence of your actions are going to be?
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Surely there has to be a motivating framework at the
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point of action, but. It's the pursuit.
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I, I think you're, you're intentionally avoiding things
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that you know to be true. Stuff like duty, freedom,
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justice, like these are motivating factors outside of
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pleasure. You, you're trying to wrap that
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all up into pleasure. I I do.
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Accept that. I do accept that, but what I
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think we're trying to, or we you are trying to skirt around is
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that you do derive pleasure from sacrifice and you do derive
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pleasure from duty. I agree.
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I agree. I agree, and I actually don't
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even, I'm not even going to go as fast to say pleasure is bad
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or like pursuing pleasure is bad.
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I think pleasure is great and it does motivate human beings and
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it's something that we should have in our lives.
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I'm just saying a hedonistic point of view, which is that
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pleasure is the only good. It's way too far.
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It's just. Not that it's the only.
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Good, that's what the actual philosophy.
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Is it's that it's the it's the highest good.
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That sounded like Epicureanism. No, the difference between like
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we actually go to the history of it like Epicureanism is a an
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Oshu of hedonism, right, right. The original idea was that
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pleasure is the ultimate goal, but Aristopus basically focused
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on short term pleasure. And we can agree that that's not
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the right of focus, exactly. Epicurus basically took that
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away and had generated other things like friendship.
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We're not going to go into Epicureanism today, but he he
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generated other things around hedonism.
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So the goal was still the same. It's just how they achieved
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this, this goal of pleasure that they disagreed on.
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Fair. And and I do like Epicureanism
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like I think it is. It is a logical and it is a good
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offshoot of hedonism. It takes the best things of
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hedonism and creates that long term view that you're talking
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about that I love. But going back to the question
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now, is it egoistic? Let's find common ground here.
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OK. Let's accept that the the, the
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the rules of assessment for hedonism is about the
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individual. We can accept that much, right?
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Yeah. OK, so I guess when I say
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egoistic, that's what I'm pointing to you.
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When you say it's not egoistic, you're saying that it's not self
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absorbed and self indulgent. It's not the Aristopus version
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of of hedonism. And we can both agree that that
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that is egoistic and that is something to be avoided.
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Yeah, fair. OK, So we found the common
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ground in that the individual is where we assess hedonism.
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Yeah, fair. I just think where we probably
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disagree slightly is I, I think those things like duty and
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sacrifice. As I mentioned, there is
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pleasure in those things. I agree there's pleasure to be
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found in those things. A. 100 I don't even disagree
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with that. I'm 100% on board with that.
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And I also accept that pleasure is a good thing that should be
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pursued in life. It's not something to be
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avoided. And life is not just about a
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duty, sacrifice and you know and suffer and suffer, right?
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OK. On to the next segment.
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Is it moral to pursue pleasure whilst others are?
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Being a person, I'm going to say no, with some heavy, heavy
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caveats. Obviously it is circumstantial
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and context really does matter. When I was thinking about this
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question, the worst form of pursuing pleasure while other
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people are suffering is actually deriving pleasure from other
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people's suffering. OK, Yeah, right.
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We can agree that that we can both agree that's horrible.
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That's that's that is horrendous.
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You know, I don't know if you know, on on TikTok and social
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media Brits going to Brazil. It's like a it's like a trend
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every year when there's festivals, the festival in
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February bear Brits go to Brazil and when I see them in favelas,
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I'm a bit like Boriski, what are you doing?
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It feels like slum tourism. You know what I mean?
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The fact that the people in the favelas are suffering, the fact
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that there there's higher crime rates, the fact that the police
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oppressed them, it all like you're going almost to enjoy
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that atmosphere without having any of the repercussions of
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actually living there favelas. And it makes me think like if
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tourists came to like 2010 Peckham and they do doing guided
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tours round Rail lane, we would think what the fuck is going on?
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But what going over there doing fucking slum tourism in in
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favelas? To me that's like the worst form
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of finding pleasure. But there's also other forms of
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finding pleasure that we aren't necessarily in control of,
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right? If you got a spot to say that's
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immoral. That's 100% immoral.
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OK, cool. Yeah, I I would 100% agree
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that's that's immoral. I don't know if you saw LeBron
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James, he answered the question about Israel and he was asked
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about the nation of Israel. And he said, yeah, I've heard
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like really great things. This in 2026, he said, I heard
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great things and I'd love to go there someday.
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Internet cooked him. Absolutely.
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Fried him up and and that's another form of what I would
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call that some of the worst. Like if he were to do that, go
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on a like a like, I don't know what compelled him to say that
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in 2026, but it was right that you got cooked.
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It just seems like you're out of touch 26.
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Way out. Just way out of touch.
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Way out of touch. But then there's also a sort of
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less severe form of finding pleasure when others are
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suffering, which is indirect, like you're not finding pleasure
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because other people are suffering.
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It's just that the two things are happening at the same time.
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So for example, if you, you like consumption and capitalism,
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right, People are exploited in, in sweatshops across the the
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planet. You enjoy those goods conscious
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free, you just buy them and you you enjoy them.
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That's like level 2 to me. I think that's.
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I I call that morally permissible.
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See, to me that's not morally permissible, but it's nowhere
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near as bad as level 1. You still think it's immoral?
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That's immoral. Immoral.
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OK. And the reason it's immoral is
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that you've got a choice, like we have choices in when in the
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way we consume. Immoral to buy an iPhone like.
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Well, I don't know a brand new iPhone that like you didn't have
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to purchase when you could get a second hand one and you can go
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and not contribute to like further degradation of the
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planet to me is an avoidable choice.
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You don't have to do that. Yeah, but I don't know if that's
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immoral. That's that's what I'm trying to
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determine. What on the line here?
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But like I would say that's just on the wrong side of the line.
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Oh. Would you?
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Yeah. OK, because you can get a good
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second hand device that has already been purchased out of
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the Apple store and you're not contributing to like, do you see
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what I'm saying? Like you're not contributing to
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Apple creating new devices. It's kind of stupid.
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I don't know if it's immoral. Yeah, it's certainly on the line
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when you have other, you've got, you've got options.
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And then there's a Level 3 where you are forced on some level to
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consuming on the capitalism, right.
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Or, or do you make a choice that you've got?
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No, you've got no options. And to me that is, that's,
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that's moral because you, you literally have no choice.
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So when we go and like buy food from Tesco or something, or we
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buy energy from the energy grid, like there's not much we can do
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about that and we have to consume on the capitalism.
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And I would say that at that point you're on the right side
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of the line. That's morally permissible.
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OK, so we pretty much agree on what is moral and what is
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immoral. But one thing to me that I
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focused on quite a lot was proximity.
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I was thinking of Peter Singer, his famous argument in Famine,
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Affluence, and morality. If you can prevent suffering
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without sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, you
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ought to do it. And so he uses like a drowning
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analogy, where if you were standing in front of a river and
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there were child drowning, you would go and help them.
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And that is the same. Even if you are far away from
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the child, the suffering still happens.
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You should try and help essentially.
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And I just don't see it the same way.
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I see you wouldn't go as far as as Peter.
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Saying no, no, no, no, no, not at all.
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I see it as the closer you are to the problem, it's logical and
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reasonable to think that you have greater influence over the
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problem, therefore you have a greater moral duty and that now
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impacts whether it's immoral or moral is your proximity to it.
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Like, it's something I thought about on this question a lot.
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Like is a moral problem ignored at home worse than one ignored
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1000 kilometres away? And I think Peterson has got a
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very good point. Because modern technology,
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modern like infrastructure means that the problem is 1000
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kilometres away are accessible to us.
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We can understand them, we can read about them, we can deep the
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problem properly and also help that problem.
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Yeah, it feels like it's a, it's a flaw, it's a human flaw that
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we care more about the problems nearby.
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And we, we have more, we feel like we've got more agency with
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the problems nearby. But my problem with that is you
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should never really then pursue any above reasonable level of
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pleasure if suffering exists, and suffering exists everywhere.
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You're right. Therefore, you should never see
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pleasure really other than simple things that allow you to
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live and exist like sleep and shelter and etcetera, which
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would be considered a pleasure in in in those circumstances.
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So I just don't think that's realistic, nor is that the human
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experience that I think we're supposed to live.
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I I I do agree with that because we are human beings at the end
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they we do have limits. And also you see the same way
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you said there's problems or I actually said there's suffering
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everywhere and we're able to know and we're aware of problems
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over there. There are people closer than us
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to that. And there are problems over here
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and we're close to these problems.
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And if we had the even though it's, it's a bit of a simplistic
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and reductive. Way to look at it.
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If everyone close to it fix their problem, then that would
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solve the problem. But it's not.
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It's not as simple as that, I understand, but if you take that
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framework that would that logically holds for me.
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It certainly would the world would be a better place if if
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people did sort shit out in their countries.
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The problem with that is, I guess politically is in to
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certain parts of the world that have been disenfranchised over
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the past by say the West where we live, the resources that we
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have available to us here to feel a lot greater.
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So we kind of have like a duty to send some of that back, back
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to the contracts that have been disenfranchised.
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But I do think there is a problem because like you said,
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if pursuing pleasure and like having like finding pleasure in
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life is immoral, when people are suffering, there is infinite
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suffering. We wouldn't, we should never
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find pleasure. Exactly.
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And it does become a bit of an issue.
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And I think, I think Gen Z like, suffer from this, like they
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because they have access to all of the world's problems.
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They can read and see all of the world's problems.
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It can feel like there can be despair, like you can never rest
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like you can. There's always A cause.
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And every single cause is just and righteous in its own by its
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own merit, that you can commit your entire life to a single
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cause and you might have died with that cause and not having
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completed this mission, right? To me, it is just about balance.
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Like you have to find some balance.
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And even if you can't take A cause to its completion and
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finish something, I think you still have to commit a
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significant amount of time and resources to A cause before you
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can find pleasure. You can't just find pleasure and
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just be like, because it seems like an impossible task.
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I ain't going to engage anyway. I think that hopelessness is
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kind of the oppressors kind of want you to feel that
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hopelessness. And the moment you you, you go
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into that hopelessness, I think you're done.
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But I also think there's a lot of joy and pleasure to be found
22:07
in the causes in themselves. Right.
22:10
Yeah, if you go. And.
22:12
In duty, like I was saying, yeah.
22:14
Exactly. If you go and and commit
22:15
yourself to A cause in, in, in many respects, people who are
22:19
committed to a 'cause they report very high levels of life
22:23
satisfaction, life enjoyment, because they in a sense
22:26
surrender them themselves, their ego to a higher like cause
22:31
'cause outside of themselves. And there's something about
22:34
humanity that when you do that, you feel fulfilled, you know, I
22:37
mean, you're not trying to find fulfilment in yourself.
22:40
You almost surrendered that ego to a higher cause.
22:44
So I think the two aren't necessarily in contradiction
22:47
with each other. Let's talk about, we've spoken
22:49
about us where we are here in London and causes outside of our
22:54
our local area. But for you, how does the mass
22:57
of pleasure and joy change when you yourself are being
23:01
oppressed? I probably.
23:03
Think that you should increase your pursuit of pleasure,
23:07
particularly if you are being oppressed, simply because I've,
23:10
I've always been quite strong on the idea of a balanced human
23:15
experience. And if I guess your oppression
23:18
goes up, I think your pleasure should go up too.
23:19
Otherwise you now don't have a balanced human experience.
23:24
Yeah. I agree.
23:25
I agree. And I think it is actually, like
23:27
you say, it's even more important to have joy and
23:29
pleasure because, and we touched on it earlier, because the point
23:33
of the impression is to take your joy.
23:36
They're trying to depress you to the point of having no hope,
23:40
right? But I, I think there's something
23:41
to be said not only to nourish yourself, right, but also if the
23:45
oppressor is trying to do something to you, doing the
23:48
opposite is an act of rebellion in a way.
23:51
You know what I mean? If if someone's trying to take
23:52
your joy and your hope, being hopeful and having joy to me is
23:55
a is an act of rebellion and you kind of know.
23:58
It's powerful. It's powerful. 100% like every
24:01
single movie that we've watched, like I'm watching Hunger Games
24:05
right now and the big bad, like institution who's trying to
24:08
oppress the people, you know, he says.
24:12
You can take the most dangerous thing that the people can have
24:15
is hope because it's not a material thing that the the
24:18
state can come and grab from you, right?
24:20
It's in your own heart, it's in your own mind.
24:22
And that can spark rebellion, it can spark revolution, and it can
24:26
spark defiance in people. I also think you need to have
24:29
joy and hope to envision a future beyond your oppression,
24:32
right? If your oppression encompasses
24:34
who you are and your being, it's difficult to think OK when we
24:38
win, when we are out of this. Situation and now I want to be
24:41
happy. Yeah, and what will the world
24:43
even look like? And if you can't imagine
24:45
something, you can't bring it to existence.
24:47
So I think joy and pleasure is extremely important in that
24:49
context. In the joy is important in the
24:52
presence of oppression or. 100% as a political tool, yeah.
24:57
To envision the future beyond your oppression, OK.
25:00
On to the final segment. You discovered you have five
25:06
years left to live. You have two options.
25:09
Option A You spend the next five years travelling, loving deeply,
25:13
eating incredible food and enjoying life with friends and
25:16
family. You maximise joy and experience.
25:20
Option B, You devote those five years to fighting a political
25:25
injustice you care about. It will be exhausted, stressful
25:29
and painful. You may achieve something
25:31
meaningful, but you will almost sacrifice personal joy.
25:35
Which one do you choose? Ah, it's tough.
25:41
I want to say B, but really in my heart, what what what I feel
25:46
like is like the two don't have to like they can coexist.
25:51
Like truly they can do that. Yeah, I'm going to do that.
25:53
I'm going to do that. My answer is B though, because I
25:59
think like I said before, if you.
26:01
Had to choose one. You choose me, but it's five
26:03
years. There's only so many trips and
26:05
and and restaurants you can hit. The five is a long time.
26:09
I know it's like it is your only five years but bro your family
26:14
need to work anyway bro leave them alone.
26:18
I genuinely think committing to a higher cause it will be
26:21
exhausting, stressful and painful.
26:22
But like that's actually what gives life purpose.
26:25
The point is that you can't just live like that's a fanciful life
26:29
of John. You don't think that's like not
26:31
real life? That's just like all the highs
26:34
and none of the real life. What it means to be human.
26:37
Do you know I'm saying? If you if you are unaware, I'm
26:40
going to go option A. Yes, I figured.
26:43
But you do realise the point of duty and sacrifice and suffering
26:48
is to have enjoyment for other. Like think about this, like
26:53
think about this like reasonably.
26:54
And if everyone sacrificed and everyone sort of followed their
26:59
moral duty all the time, who's there to enjoy the whole point
27:04
of the people that have done or, or a cheap or focused on moral
27:10
duty and sacrifice and suffering?
27:12
It's so when you have your five years left on earth, you can
27:15
enjoy them however you want to enjoy them and enjoy the
27:19
pleasure of that. That is the point of these
27:21
things that other people do this work.
27:25
So at some point the other people can enjoy it and other
27:28
people do work, so at some point those people can enjoy it.
27:31
And that is the cycle of it all. You don't do eight years left.
27:34
You don't think that's a bit of capitalist propaganda though?
27:36
This idea that you work, you do duty, you do sacrifice, you do
27:41
suffering, and then you enjoy afterwards.
27:43
Well. That's the captain's propaganda.
27:45
They want you to work yourself into the ground.
27:48
And you might. You might.
27:49
No, you might. You might not do that.
27:50
No, no. Hold on, Hold on hold.
27:52
On I wouldn't say nothing like that.
27:55
I wouldn't say anything like that.
27:57
What the fuck? Like duty, sacrifice and
28:04
suffering? That's what I was talking about.
28:06
Talking about work. OK.
28:08
But I'm, I'm saying that's not divorced from the idea of work.
28:12
Yeah, it is work in a sense. No, it's not.
28:15
It's not working the capital in a sense though, like it's not
28:18
labour. It is.
28:20
Sacrifice on duty you want? To call it like moral labour, I
28:22
guess like, but say you're another group and I'm, I'm a
28:26
group. I'm I'm doing the work you, your
28:28
group's oppressed. I'm doing work for your group's
28:30
not oppressed, OK? Oh, you're talking about like in
28:34
in the context of oppression. Yeah, Yeah.
28:37
I'm doing work. So your group's not oppressed.
28:39
Sure. OK.
28:41
Magically, wonderfully, the oppression disappears.
28:43
What are you now supposed to do? Work for another group?
28:46
Are you? You're not supposed to enjoy the
28:47
fact that we've done the work. So you're not oppressed.
28:50
The whole point is so you live unoppressed.
28:54
Yeah, but like, I will have done work too, right?
28:57
I'm doing work alongside you. We're working together.
29:00
We are doing work together to enjoy freedom once we achieve
29:06
it. But our enjoyment, our pleasure
29:09
has to have like the sweetness of it comes from the work.
29:13
Yeah. But you have but energies left
29:14
to live. That's what I'm talking about.
29:16
You have five years left to live.
29:18
The whole point is so you can enjoy it.
29:19
That's what people are. Fighting for, but I'm trying to
29:21
say that pleasure without the real life of being a human like
29:25
the, the, the real facets of humanity, right, which is that
29:29
we live, we breathe, we suffer. Suffering to me is inherent in
29:33
humanity. Suffering in whatever form it
29:36
comes in. It doesn't have to be physical
29:37
suffering. It could be, you know, it could
29:39
be mental anguish. It can be all, all manner of
29:41
things, but that's what makes humanity human.
29:44
If you don't have that, if you don't have existential thoughts
29:47
about why you exist on this planet, like what?
29:50
What does it mean to be human then?
29:52
If we could just have pleasure without that?
29:54
And I'm saying if you've got five years to live, at some
29:57
point of the five years you need to find meaning in the five
29:59
years. What's the point?
30:01
Like when you left? What's the point if you just did
30:03
a what do? You mean what's the point of?
30:04
What? What's the point of your five
30:06
years? Like if you just did a, you just
30:07
did pleasure for five years. Because you created a load of
30:11
experiences with your friends and your family.
30:13
OK, so it's in that connection with your friends and family
30:18
that you find the meaning. It's not in the pleasure of
30:21
itself. It's not in the actual food you
30:23
ate. It's not in the actual.
30:25
It's not only sensory pleasure, Yeah.
30:28
We have. Other pleasure, that is is
30:30
generated. OK, that that Tim, I'm now on
30:32
board with that like that, that was.
30:34
Part of it. Sure, but that's why I
30:37
hesitated. I'm not like 100% on BI, think
30:39
there's a lot of good in a as well.
30:41
But the part, the part of a that is meaningful is the bit that
30:44
you spend with it, with your, with your family and friends,
30:48
the human bit. Yeah, the experience is.
30:50
The OK, yeah, OK. But in that there's conflict in
30:52
that there's the relationship that you have with your family
30:56
is human to me. Yes.
30:57
Yeah. And that's where the meaning
30:59
comes from. So you could even take out the
31:00
pleasure. And if you just spent five years
31:02
with your family and friends, to me, like that is a very good and
31:05
meaningful. You get what I'm saying?
31:07
You use the term pleasure though like you're like if you take out
31:10
the there is pleasure in the family and friends bit as well.
31:13
Sorry, in fact, you're right, I should not have used the word
31:15
that way. You're absolutely correct.
31:17
I'm saying the material like in the sensory pleasure.
31:20
OK, Yeah, yeah, OK, cool. I think we kind of agreed
31:24
though. Like, I'm not going to lie, I
31:25
don't think we're that. No, I don't think we're we're
31:27
that far apart at all. Robert Nozick is a philosopher
31:31
who was a critic of hedonism. He wrote an attack on on
31:35
hedonism, something that he thought was one of hedonism to
31:38
weaknesses and proved that the critical hypothesis of hedonism,
31:44
it was flawed, right. He basically asked you the
31:47
question if you could plug your brain into a floating into a
31:51
machine he called the experience machine, and that experience
31:55
machine could give you all of the pleasure you could ever want
31:58
out of life in a simulated reality that you cannot
32:01
distinguish from real life. Would you plug into that
32:03
machine? What do you think?
32:04
I don't like this. I don't like it.
32:11
I I don't think it's a realistic thought experiment one.
32:15
OK, because there were too many unknowns attached.
32:18
To it OK so so this is the thought experiment is an excerpt
32:22
from a paper that he's written it's called anarchy state in
32:25
utopia. He wrote it in 1974 and he's got
32:29
a list of caveats and qualifications to the, the, the
32:33
the thought experiment that he lists in the paper right in
32:36
popular culture that the experience machine is like given
32:39
as a single stand alone thought experiment.
32:42
But he's got a full description. He's basically like you can
32:45
plug, you can plug out of it whenever you want.
32:47
You can pick what you think is pleasurable, like as many times
32:53
as you want. So you can spend five years in
32:54
the pleasure machine in the experience machine, plug back
32:57
out, go back in and recalibrate the machine to give you new
33:01
experiences you can. Because the issue basically my,
33:05
my issue with this is how pleasure is measured.
33:09
Like on what time frame is it measured?
33:11
So this experience that you're discussing, like it doesn't
33:16
happen in a vacuum, right? So there's bound to be
33:20
consequences to you. Plug it in, he discusses.
33:24
Them, he says, like look, your family and friends can also plug
33:27
into their own separate machines or or not or you can choose for
33:31
their every need to be like dealt with so that you leaving
33:36
them doesn't impact them in a negative way.
33:38
No, it's not Even so much that. It's like, how conscious are you
33:42
of plugging in, plugging out, understanding how many years you
33:49
have within this, how many years it takes off your life?
33:52
Do you get what I mean? Like it doesn't, it doesn't just
33:54
happen and then you come out and everything's exactly the same.
33:59
There are consequences to have people interact with the fact
34:02
that you did it as well, so. But you say you get to control
34:05
all of that. You get to control.
34:06
Everything, everything, it's perfect.
34:09
So when you come out, everyone's like great to have you back.
34:12
Get to control how you want it. Even how people react to you
34:15
having done it, you get to control all of that.
34:17
Every single variable. Well, so I'm basically like
34:20
omnipotent, which is a different sort of thing.
34:22
And if I'm on omnipotent, yeah, I would take that.
34:24
Like what? You're also taking omnipotence,
34:26
which is sick. Yeah, right.
34:30
Yeah, You can't do that. What?
34:32
I'm saying so like, if you can control all of that, you would
34:34
be omnipotent, wouldn't you? But let's.
34:37
The reason I'm saying you can control all of that is that
34:40
let's just assume that the best case scenario happens.
34:42
I have your control like that. That's why I've got you.
34:45
So you come out and the best case scenario you could like
34:48
that could be fathomed is the case that you experience.
34:52
OK, then yes, I probably do, yeah.
34:57
OK, fair. So in the experiment, most
34:58
people say they wouldn't plug in.
35:00
What Nozick argues is that if you wouldn't plug in, or even if
35:05
you think it's reasonable, that someone wouldn't plug in.
35:07
Like, say it's reasonable. Yeah, say you would plug in, but
35:11
you think it's it's rational that someone wouldn't plug in.
35:14
It proves that pleasure is not the only good under a hedonistic
35:19
framework because you have all the pleasure that you could
35:22
want, but there seems to be something about human life
35:25
outside of the pleasure machine that you would be missing when
35:28
you plugged in. That is Nozick's argument
35:30
generally. And he says if you think it's
35:32
rational that someone would not plug in, then hedonism is
35:36
disproven. So that's that's his overall
35:37
argument. And you could change that
35:39
argument. You could be like I call if you
35:42
could become a dog. And as a dog, you live the most
35:45
pleasurable life possible for a dog ever.
35:49
Would you become a dog? Most people say that I wouldn't
35:51
become a dog, and it proves that there's something about human
35:53
life outside of pleasure that seems to be worth having, right?
35:57
Or if you could plug into a results machine, you could just
36:00
become the person you wanted to be without any of the work.
36:04
I I think there is a, a psychological impact of risk
36:09
that is attached to these things that is not being considered.
36:13
It's not as simple as, OK, yeah, I'd choose to be a dog or I'd
36:18
choose to plug into this machine.
36:20
There is risk attached to these things.
36:22
Yeah, it was a full experiment. You could suspend there's.
36:24
Yeah. But he's obviously said if it
36:26
would be reasonable for somebody not to disprove something.
36:30
And I don't think it does. I don't think in that example
36:34
alone it does because it's it's not accounting for the variables
36:38
considered when you have to to select and make a decision.
36:42
I I think you're right, it's not a flawless thought experiment.
36:45
It's not a flawless attack on hedonism, but it doesn't pose
36:48
the question like what is this thing that human life seems to
36:52
have the if it is rational to not plug in, it does seem to
36:55
like human life has it's. It's familiarity.
36:58
That's that's what it is. It's what you understand.
37:01
It's changes. It's scary.
37:04
OK, So if you could plug into a results machine, yeah, that's
37:07
another like variation of the of the experience machine.
37:10
So if you could plug into a machine for 5 minutes and the
37:15
machine made you the person that you wanted to be in 5 minutes
37:20
with no additional work. It still applies though.
37:23
It's the same, the same. Would you?
37:26
Would you plug in? Would you do that or not?
37:27
If you could be like you, you say you wanted to be someone.
37:30
Who was No, I wouldn't, but but also that's because there's
37:33
pleasure in the journey. Like as we grow this show,
37:36
there's pleasure in growing the show together and developing and
37:39
improving. There's pleasure in that keep.
37:41
Going back to pleasure. I can't get you to not go back
37:44
to pleasure. Fucking hell.
37:49
But anyway, yeah, I thought. I thought those poor experiments
37:52
were were were quite, quite interesting.
37:58
It's the horrible good thing who's.
38:00
Not who's not All right, Cool, Lovely.
38:06
Watch love see you soon. All right, see you next.
38:09
Week bye, bye.