I’m not a phycologist or an economist, or any other kind of expert that would be a match for the content of this post. So be smart, and seek professional guidance when you need it. I make no claim that anything I may write is true. At this time, there is no data to back it up. I only claim they are interesting ideas, that are worth further exanimation.
People should be free to express their beliefs, educated or not. The only moral obligation is to be honest about our level of experience, and any lack of evidence. With that having been stated in the first paragraph I want to start this blog by telling everyone about what I call the "Pain and Pleasure Algorithm." This is something I've come up with, I claim, with no certainty, that this theory can explain all human behavior. I claim with no certainty that it's never been explained in such a way as I will explain it. I do not claim this theory is new. I will finally claim that generally people do not think about this. Understanding it could help people understand themselves.
Okay, for better or worse prepare yourself for this answer, to why do people do what they do:
"The purpose of pleasure is to repeat behavior."
I have been on a mental journey for years thinking about this, and I will not likely tell the full tale of that journey as it's very personal, suffice it to say, it including a lot of sitting round and thinking, and hearing smart people talk.
I will now explain, because this needs explain'in. To start, here are some rhetorical questions to ease into what I think this means.
Question: What do you not want?
Answer: Pain.
Question: How do you get pain?
Answer: My body makes it.
Question: Why does your body make pain?
Answer: To tell me I'm hurt.
Question: Why do you feel hurt?
Answer: Something went wrong, my body made pain to tell me about it.
Question: What do you want?
Answer: Pleasure.
Question: How do you get pleasure?
Answer: My body makes it.
Question: Why does your body make it?
Answer: To tell me I'm happy.
Question: Why do you feel happy?
Answer: Something went right, my body make pleasure to tell me about it.
Question: How do you avoid what you don't want?
Answer: When I feel pain, I remember what happened leading up to it, I will remember the important details, and some details that may not be important. I often think about things that happened, when I can understand them I will use that understanding to be watchful of something like it. They become the cause of my pain. If something is like the cause of my pain, it may lead to pain again. I can choose differently now and avoid pain.
Question: How do you seek for what you want?
Answer: When I feel pleasure, I remember what happened leading up to it, I will remember the important details, and some details that may not be important. I often think about things that happened, when I can understand them I will use that understanding to be watchful of something like it. They become the cause of my pleasure. If something is like the cause of my pleasure, it may lead to pleasure. I can choose the same way and indulge.
Question: What if the cause of pain is also the cause of pleasure?
Answer: I will compare the amount of pain, with the amount of pleasure. If the pain is great, and the pleasure is not as great, I will not do it. If the pleasure is great, and the pain is not as great, I will do it.
What does this mean?
From birth to death, there is an enormous saga, between two apposing ideas: pain and pleasure. These two emotions become tools for our mind to make future decisions. Our mind will record the emotion felt by an experience, then also record all events before and after the emotion. After an experience of pain or pleasure this data is collected by our mind to form what we might call a profile. It has the feeling we felt linked together with the experiences before and after the emotion. Then our mind will take this data and reflect on it. Removing the data that doesn't seem to be related to the cause and effect of the pleasure. Eventually finding the cause that led to the feeling.
This refinement process can happen during sleep, or pondering while awake. It can also be helped by new information from other experiences. Over time this profile of information will become more meaningful to us. Learning from past emotional experiences and building this profile of information about them can take a long time or a short time, but it will get to a stopping point, however it may never fully be completed. Our brain may at times want to reexamine the profile again.
How aware are we of this process? We potentially can be aware of it to an extent, but I feel that most often it will happen automatically, and at times it will be completely kept from our conscience mind.
Notice in the rhetorical questions, how pain and pleasure are the same, yet operating as complete opposites. They are manifestations in our own bodies, representing the things happening around us and eventually to us. We think of pain and pleasure as being external, which is true in a way, and not true in another way. Pain and pleasure are interpretations our body gives us of what is happening. They are not foreign, rather a part of us.
Like a messenger to a king or queen. As long as the messenger is correct, what good would it be to blame the messenger for bad news. If the messenger is incorrect about good news, what good would come to the king or queen showing up an hour early to a dinner party, or four hours early. Believe me, no good at all. This is part of a major point about this process I wish to make. The success of our body giving us pleasure and pain to help us interact with the world around us is dependent on how accurate the the pleasure and pain is in interpreting the world around us. Like in the example of the King or Queen, the royal can't be in every part of their kingdom at once, they must rely on messengers to inform them as to what is happening. If the King or Queen ignores a true message there will be consequences for that, if the King or Queen believes a false message there will be consequences for that.
So pleasure and pain communicate to us, at least try as best they can. What the rhetorical questions are also meant to show, is that this process of recording emotional experiences and the things that lead up to them, and happened after them, and refining those memories are part of an enormous and complicated algorithm. This algorithm is used to make calculations to predict what will be the result of future choices.
There will be a catalyst among the past events. A key event that made the pleasure possible. This event becomes known as the cause. The goal of this algorithm is to find the cause of our pain or pleasure.
When our brain can associate a cause for pain or pleasure, this is where the magic happens. We begin to make associations galore, with anything that could be related to the cause is associated. Our brain is trying to find the cause of the cause. If the brain can find the cause of the cause it can then link things related to that cause of a cause to the final pleasure or pain. What this looks like to us is that we see ourselves or others in this process obsessing over something.
Why does the fisherman sit in a boat for hours waiting for a fish to bite? Why do they spend the time to organize their fishing tackle box? Why do they spend so much time thinking about fishing boats and admiring fishing boats? Because they have created a relationship in their mind between the reward of fishing, with the things that facilitate that reward.
Perhaps it would be easier to understand this, if it was in a simpler context. Here is a story, that may explain it best.
Story time
A cave man or women sits in their cave. The cave is cold, but outside the cave it is much colder. Inside the cave is a camp fire, some small amount of food, and a group of loved ones that are either very old or very young, and depend on our cave person to survive.
This cave has safety from wild animals. There is warmth from the fire, food to eat, support from family members. Logic would dictate that staying in the cave would be the right place to be. Good things are in the cave, outside the cave those good things are not available. So what happens? The cave person feels pleasure inside the cave. Warmth from the fire, pleasure. Food, more pleasure. Support from close friends (I didn't say frenemies), more pleasure. The good things of life give us pleasure. We may not always recognize pleasure when it happens, but it's there. Think about when you get a hug, when you bite a burger, or when you see a friend that you have missed for a long time. Our cave person can easily feel these pleasures, in fact, inside the cave is the greatest amount of pleasure our cave person has ever known. These positive things become a mental reference point, for how to obtain pleasure, that reference point indicates to stay in the cave so they can be close enough to experience the pleasure.
Our brains are always very busy recording and judging everything. Pleasure and pain are the indicators that something is important.
Eventually, the last of the firewood will turn to ash. If our cave person continues to stay in the cave. This place of pleasure will eventually cause pain, because of the cold. When this happens, a new reference point is made. Pain is created by the cave persons body, to communicate the reality of the cold. The experience of the pain is added to memory, it becomes a new reference point. A reference point of a pain called scarcity. This pain is joined by another painful experience, the loss of pleasure. They are two different pains. The cave dweller knows what the warmth of the fire feels like, that pleasure creates addition pain in it's absence. These two pains are joined together into one painful experience. Now, in the cave dwellers mind, a mental search is conducted to investigate the problem.
Now it comes down to the question, what caused the fire to be so hot and strong? It was wood that fueled the fire. What caused the wood to appear? It was gathered from outside the cave. How do they know this? They have family to pass on this knowledge. However they can only pass on knowledge. This knowledge does not have an emotional experience associated with it. Because of this, the knowledge can only go so far to help the cave dweller. By this the cave dweller knows, they must go out of the cave, but the reality of what that will mean for them, they can not be fully aware of.
Outside the cave is colder then inside the cave. The cave person would have to venture into the place of more pain in order to get what will bring them pleasure.
Inside the mind of our cave person, a calculation is done. Before the scarcity, leaving the cave would mean not having the pleasures of the cave. With scarcity, the same calculation is done, but with different data. A choice must be made between two bad options, the pain of staying with scarcity is compared to the pain of leaving the cave. The cave is still warmer then the outside cave, so logically staying in the cave would be the correct thing to do, but our cave dweller has a link in their mind, that indicates that leaving the cave is the cause of finding wood, gathering the wood is the cause of returning with the wood, and the wood is the cause of the fire warming the cave. The warm of the fire was a cause to stay, now after the file is gone it becomes a cause to leave the cave.
How aware is the cave dweller of their own feelings? This decision can be understood by the cave dweller. But the depth of their mind that is involved in this decision, is not known. Leaving the cave is a logical decision, but our cave person doesn't make these hard decisions with logic, only an emotional choice is valid in hard choices. Only pain of the cold replacing the pleasure of the fire would force them to leave the cave.
Because this cave person is going to survive they choose to do what they feel compelled to do. Leaving the cave, they suffer the cold even more, they fear the attack of animals, they fear getting lost. They go forward anyway, powerful fears tell them to return to the cave. Each cold gush of wind will cause their mind to reevaluate their situation. The cost of pain is compared to the possibility of pleasure. If the pain ever becomes too great, our cave dweller will return. The conclusion is always the same, they must go on.
Gathering wood takes time, and all the pain felt in the experience is recorded. Any obstacles encountered are also recorded as part of the experience and become part of the overall pain memory.
After gathering the wood, they return to the cave. Their family greets them, their joy is expressed, pleasure comes. They put the wood on the fire, pleasure from warmth comes. Their brain examines this experience, and makes another reference. The experience of success becomes evident that the preceding actions were correct.
There were lots of opportunities for the cave dweller to experience pain. They could have hit their head against the wall, or stubbed their toe, while staying in the cave. Pain from those experiences would not create warmth in the cave. The cave dweller had to find the right pain. Only the correct pain would restore the pleasure. To have pleasure, pain must proceed. If firewood always magically appeared in the cave the cave dweller would never have found the correct pain. There would be no purpose in finding this particular pain, because there would be no scarcity. Firewood doesn't magically appear, it has to be gathered. So the relationship in the mind with the correct pain had to be formed in order for success to happen.
Now that the cave is warm, the problem of the food running out is the next obstacle. The process begins again. The cave person knows the food is outside the cave, and will have to leave again. The cave dweller has a emotional understanding from experience of what it would mean to leave the cave again. So there is a choice to be made using the mental reference points the cave dweller has. They know the pain of the cold, but they also feel hunger. They now must judge the two pains and make a choice. It's obvious which is right. The pain of hunger is too great, they will have to leave the cave again. So they do.
As they leave the cave, looking in every direction, they can't see food. The wood, was everywhere and only needed to be easily gathered. Now there is a new complexity for our cave dweller: Uncertainty. Which direction do they go? All the directions seem the same. The sight in every direction is endless wild with likely many causes of pain. Hunger still exists, and it's the strongest pain right now, and over powers the pain of fear. With no good choices to be made, any choice will be made. There is currently no emotional experience connected with any direction. The selection is to travel toward the where the sun sets, the search for food starts.
After hours, no food is found. Darkness begins to come. The cave dweller knows that darkness is a potential cause of pain. Their mind calculates their situation more, the danger of animals, and the need to satisfy hunger, inflicts it's powerful tole. Do they accept hunger, or danger. Our cave dweller would choose the danger in the daytime, however with the darkness coming, finding food becomes impossible. The cause of pleasure is then not possible, no pain can be acceptable if there is no pleasure to be gained. The calculation in their mind is clear, they return to the cave.
The family greets them, but the interaction is disappointment. They show their support, however there is no avoiding the hunger through the night. This new experience is also recorded: Failure. Once again a mental reference point is made. A profile of this experience is recorded, what happened before it, what it felt like. The mind reflects on the experience.
The cave person expected food, but food was not the result. Our cave dwellers cleaver body begins to create something special for them, disappointment. This emotion is painful, and now their mind begins to examine the events that lead to it. When the morning breaks, the cave dweller hunger and disappointment are still present. However, finding food is now a possibility again with the light of the sun. Emotional comparing the pain of searching for food, with the pain of more hunger the choice is clear. Again they would have to leave the warm fire and loving support of others, into the pain of the outside cave.
Standing at the same point of decision as the day before, they make their choice again. Every direction still looks the same. However by remembering the disappointment and added hunger that came from going toward where the sun sets. They will not choose what before led them to failure. Rational or irrational, they dreed the idea of going toward where the sun sets. There mental connection to that direction has pain linked with it. Instead they choose to travel toward where the sun rises.
After some traveling, our cave dweller finds what they were looking for. Several bushes of fruit. They gather all that is there, pleasure is experienced by the cave dweller. Again a reference point is made, all that was experienced before, the pleasure of finding the fruit is recorded. Future events related to this will also be recorded. Now to note something special as well. The previous reference point of failure, can also be linked to this pleasure. Also the choice to go toward the rising sun is referenced. As they sit for a moment admiring their find, deep in the mind, this connection between experiences is made, the cave dweller doesn't notice this, they only feel joy with their success.
I will explain again. The day before the cave dweller experienced uncertainty when examining which way to travel to find food. That experience was painful, but a way was found to solve that pain. It was trying. It was picking an option that turned out to be wrong, then feeling disappointed, then trying again. Uncertainty led to failure, and failure led to change, change led to success. Tasting the fruit finally, another reference point is created, certainty. Success led to certainty. If this chain reaction of events leads to pleasure, then it becomes the cause of pleasure. It's not a thought experiment to the cave dweller, or knowledge told by others, they know it works from witnessing the process of it, they know this deeper in their mind then they can understand.
They return to the cave.
Returning with food to their loved ones brings pleasure. The family is pleased. Now they have fire and food, and each other. Another reference point is made, for a moment, they have enough. The memory of how painful the experience was, is evidence they have enough. As they calculate again the pain and pleasure they have experienced, it's evident they could not have done better. So another reference point is made, contentment.
If the cave dweller had chosen to stay in the warmth of the cave and never leave what pleasure they had, pain would have eventually giving way to death. So once again our cave dwellers mind must also make reference to this experience, the right kind of pain will bring success. The whole of the experience can be reflected on, and a complete profile is made with all of it's parts linked together.
The cave dwellers mind helped them pursue pleasure even when it would mean to increase their pain. The cave dwellers mind helped them avoid repeating mistakes when they choose to travel in a new direction for food. If the cave dweller had gone in the same direction, toward where the sun sets, on the second day. They would have only found the same empty wilderness. The pain of that experience helped them choose a new path, one that ultimately payed off.
We are not at the ending of this story, you will have to still experience more pain, in reading it. But we are now at the final point of our story. This is where our cave dweller's brain does something special.
When they wake up, they find the firewood and the food has run out again. The process must begin again. This time, relationship of the right pain for pleasure is more clear in their mind. Only by enduring the cold, and by being persisted in finding food through the stages of uncertainty, failure, change, success, certainty and contentment, will bring the ultimate reward. The pain felt before while experiencing that process begins to change.
Pain is communication from the body, the body is now smarter, and the message is now smarter. The sting of the cold now becomes tolerable. The long journey though the wild becomes intriguing. The pain is still there, but it's meaning becomes different. This pain has been linked to pleasure. It has become the cause of pleasure. And the painful causes of pleasure become pleasure.
Enough of this "Pain and Pleasure Algorithm" has been shown to help describe what is now happening. Pleasure has lead to repeating behavior. The cave person goes on and on gathering time after time. Whenever food and wood is needed, it's searched for. If obstacles arise, the need to repeat the behavior continues to lead the cave dweller on.
There still is one component to this story, to finally make it complete. Somehow the pain from reading this has not caused you to quit yet, so I feel I'm safe to add more at this point.
All this repeated behavior has led to something new. Searching for food, has lead to so many experiences of pleasure, their mind has become more and more busy with recording all the associated experiences, including the obstacles, one of which was a sharp branch that was stumbled into. They think about the wood they gather. They have now mastered gathering food, and as they sit by the fire in the warm cave, they think about the fish they saw in the river by the cave. I have said many times that recording experiences that are connected to pleasure leads to finding the cause of pleasure. Well it now also leads to innovation. The cave dweller would not have thought about these things without the connection to pleasure being recorded. A connection is made, the cave dweller wants the fish in the river as food, the wood is sometimes sharp, the wood can be gathered.
Obsession over the causes of pleasure has new rewards. Obsession is a pain, but when the cave dweller spears their first fish, and enjoys the meal, the pain of obsession also becomes pleasure. Our cave dweller continues to expand their capabilities using the pain and pleasure algorithm. Even at this moment, the cave dweller only knows how they feel, not why.
Pain and Pleasure Algorithm is "The purpose of pleasure is to repeat behavior."
The Explanation
Has there ever been something you didn't want to do? If you are like me, then you once found yourself at the top of huge water slide for the first time. You didn't want to go on the slide, but everyone else did, and you didn't want them to know just how much you didn't want to go on the slide. As an unavoidable fate, you found yourself at the top of the water slide, with others impatiently waiting behind you for their turn. Do you accept your shame and walk back, passing everyone, or do you experience what you also don't want to experience and go down the slide. Choices, choices. Which pain is worse? I'm usually the coward, but at this moment in my youth I shoved off to the unknown. In this one case, it was a blast. I took as many re-slides as possible afterward. What I once dreaded brought grumpiness when it was time to leave and no more have it. For the rest of my youth, when a water slide was available, I made my self available. Only by experience can pain be conquered. Pain connected with pleasure, becomes pleasure.
Why do fishermen sit in a boat for hours, only to maybe catch something? Why do people sit at slot machine in casinos, doing so little over and over again, watching the outcome of each crank? How did people manage to farm before machinery? Spending days walking in lines planting. How do people endure pain so well?
When there is a source of pleasure, there will be a source of pain to achieve it. Eventually the right pain is found and that pain gets an emotional makeover. Boredom becomes interest, uncertainty becomes adventure, tiredness becomes tolerable. Necessary pain becomes worth it. In a way, it all becomes a form of pleasure. People do well with hard work because they are at some level succeeding in the Pain and Pleasure Algorithm.
Now a bigger question, why do people not endure the right pain when it's obvious the right pain would bring pleasure?
I've been told all my days that I'm lazy, and it's true. Ironically the term lazy is also lazy, because it takes a huge subject of why people choose to do what the do, and slaps on, "it's because they are lazy". It's so right, and so non-descriptive of what is really happening. So you re-watched the same video again instead of mowing your lawn. You have that collage paper to write, but your friends are online in your favorite game.
What this theory teaches us, is that to do the hard things, we must get a taste of the reward in the right way. This must happen in order for the right pain, to be properly associated with the pleasure. Our mind must have this association.
If this association is not made, it will lead to our resistance to doing hard things.
Now, this is where we may make a difference, at least I hope so. It may be possible to help people struggling with laziness, by understanding this theory, and applying it's logic. We may be able to create these relationships in their mind using experiences. What they need is a sample to start this process. They will have to step out of their metaphorical cave, and grasp even one piece of firewood and feel the warm fire that comes from it. How we do that is going to depend on what the metaphorical stick, cave, and cold is in comparison to real life.
Education, how to change it.
Sometimes in teaching people, we are so focused on forcing them to do what they need to do, that the Pain and Pleasure Algorithm, can't do what it was designed to do. People must experience the right work, which will lead to the right success, and therefor learn a repeatable behavior that over and over again brings in success. If this process can't be completed, then the association is never completed. The only reason why the educational system has any of the success, is because some of the students have been able to complete the Pain and Pleasure Algorithm process. At some point, they are able to experience pleasure, and they are hooked, they then accept the pain of science, math, literature etc, the pain those bring eventually becomes interest. For students that will never experience pleasure from learning, they will not be hooked, and will never accept the pain. They will search else where for pleasure. There pain tells them they must find pleasure, it's not optional, there search will go on in a different direction.
The learning process should go from uncertainty, to failure, to change, to success, to then certainty. If a student can't finish an assignment, or fails in an assignment, then they will go from uncertainty, to failure, but then because change is so difficult, the education system, and student can't finish the process, the effort is abandoned. The student will not experience success. Which means they will never get to certainty. The right pain, can't be linked with pleasure. Eventually, if the issue is not resolved, they may see education, perhaps even society it's self as only pain. Pain without the chance of reward will not be accepted, according to the rules of our own mind. The teacher, the parent, the policemen becomes the cause of pain. The only pleasure that is referenced is in avoiding what is now believed to be the enemy, the system of society. This leads to what we call, rebellion.
So what do we do? What I say we do, is we change our tactics.
The educational systems are very good about introducing the right pain, but they leave it up to the student to make the next part of the process to happen. Some can make it happen on their own, and others can't. Teachers will put all their effort into explaining that there will be pleasure after the pain. They fail by doing this because they are giving knowledge, expecting that to be all that is needed. Being given instruction from others is the beginning of the process, not the end. The student must take the knowledge given from the teacher, and use it to inflict upon themselves the correct pain. Because the pain is right, the pleasure will come eventually. When that is complete, only then will the teacher see the success they want. The students mind must have personal evidence of the correctness of the pain. As trusting as the student may be this can not be taught through instruction.
Instead of focusing on work alone, we should focus on experiencing the pleasure of work. Assignments from teaches are thought to accomplish this, but in reality they rarely do. The student must feel pleasure as a result of the assignment, not only pain. Pleasure from a grade will not work. Pleasure of someone saying good job will not work. They must feel pleasure because what they did made something happen. That something that happened must cause a problem to be solved. That problem that was solved needs to give them something. Solving problems is the behavior we want to repeat, so the pleasure must come from that and nothing else for learning to happen.
When students are struggling, we allow them to struggle, even if it requires more time. If more time doesn't help, it will mean that the pain is just to great to overcome. At this point, it's shown they can't finish the learning process on there own. There is no short cut to the process, but there is a way ease into it. What they need is one or many smaller experiences, that will contain all of the processes. If they can complete a small experience, they may gain enough of a relation, to start upgrading their pleasure pain relation on the next experience.
So here is one example, for an older student that can't read at their grade level, what they need is a book with a story that will menially interest them (high in pleasure), but has a reading level they can manage (low in pain). Don't let other students know they are reading them, otherwise embarrassment will create too much pain. If they can decode the words and have it lead to something they want, they will see the advantage in more reading. More reading, with more pleasure from the reading will start to make the brain obsess over things related to the pleasure, and their reading ability will be obsessed over. The big question would be, who will write the book. Don't expect it to be easy. But if an educator follows this and it works then obsession will make the hard parts to implement this easier.
Another example would be for a student struggling with math. Rather than going over math more times. Have them write a computer program that uses math to create something interesting. It can be graphical art using formulas, a computer game which can easily use math, a program that predicts sports outcomes. Something that matches a pleasure they wish to pursue. Make the requirements so that math at their level, not beyond needs to be used. As they experience the assignment the chances of them linking the pain of the math to the pleasure of end product are much higher then repeating math assignments. If an emotional relationship between math and the pleasure of their final product can be made, at that time you can start push them to do more difficult math through new requirements of the software. The teacher can monitor for signs of obsession over math. When this happens, learning is truly in progress.
The educational systems of the world at some point is going to have to give up on the need for all students to learn the same material, at the same time, in the same order. Students will have to learn at different speeds for this process to work, and still be at the same grade level. But how you ask? That would require far to many teachers? Well, it could be done. This style of teaching by focusing on the pleasure of work only needs to be done to get the student committed to learning a subject. If a student is committed to learning a subject then repetitive study can become most of the students time. Computerized training can consume most of the students time, allowing teachers to focus more on individuals. Also giving students more time for recreational play will also give the teachers more time. Unstructured play leads to improving a students natural ability to process the steps to creating pain and pleasure relationships, the steps being act on knowledge, uncertainty, failure, change, success, certainty and contentment. Remember some students can figure these processes out on their own, and play makes the self discovery and implementation of the process more possible.
A final note about this. I feel like much of the reason why we are so obsessed with stories both true and untrue, is that they help us in the first stage of this theory. They will give us knowledge that can inspire us. Children need good stories when they are young to build this first foundation. That foundation will be needed as they leave the metaphorical cave, and go through their own journey.
The Unexpected Problem
I can see people all over this world doing the best they know how to do. Still they find themselves unhappy, and confused by why they are unhappy. Life is good, but they feel that it is not. Their body is telling them they are low on pleasure, some people choose to get this pleasure with mood altering drugs.
What happens when we feel good, when we haven't earned it?
Stop and think about all the pleasure educing chemicals that can make people feel good. What happens if bad data goes into the pleasure and pain algorithm?
Our algorithm would tell us we have pleasure, then the cause for our pleasure is referenced to the chemical. Everything that lead to obtaining the chemical would be recorded by the brain and used to determine the cause of the pleasure. How did they get the drugs? That would become the cause of their pleasure and what they would obsess over. Any pain that was experienced in this process would become tolerated.
Now it's time to be scared. The more pleasure we experience, the less our ability to cancel the relationship between pain and pleasure. If the pleasure is strong enough, it will be near impossible to control ourselves after the relationship in our minds has been set. We may be able to resist the relationship for a while, but eventually the fact that all other pleasures can't be better then it, will cause us to pursue the greatest pleasure we have recorded in out mind. Addiction has been made, and we will now be slaves to it.
Many have not survived the empty promise of false happiness, when their own mind was used against them.
I'm not an addiction specialist, so get professional advice and invite others to do that same. I remind you this blog is for discussing this theory, not for making determinations for people. You can always talk to a professional about this theory, and they likely would say I already know that, or something disproving about this. Again, I'm not claiming any of this is correct.
The results of pursuing false pleasure is in the end, an unhappy person What is the point of thinking you are warm in a cave, when you are cold. What is the point of thinking your stomach is full when you are hungry. Mind altering chemicals are an enormous problem to humanity. If mind altering chemicals where not enough, vanity and arrogance will effect us the same way.
Now I will explain why it's worse then that. Our pleasure and pain algorithm heavily relies on bias. In order to get the cave person out of the more comfortable place with no gains, into the less comfortable place outside the cave with something to gain, bias must be infused into their thinking. This is why people follow emotion over logic. The pain and pleasure algorithm influences our bias to control out behavior.
I plan to write a whole thing about bias. But for know I'm using the word in a more neutral way. I'm falling into a taboo here, but just bare with me. In order to survive our cave person must believe in the actions that will be the cause for it's survival. If there are logical reasons why that action would be wrong, the algorithm just simply washes over it with some bias. Look at that shine! What was once a nagging problem, becomes not true.
Addicts don't believe they are addicts, they deny it with such mental skill their own conscience mind is fooled too. So much of how this algorithm works is under the hood of the human brain, we can somewhat understand it within us, but not easily. If an addict can admit to their problem, suddenly the algorithm starts getting better data. This is good. I don't see how any recovery is possible without this correct data being added to the algorithm. Remember how pain gets a makeover when it's connected to pleasure. Acknowledging when you have a problem is taking the mask off that pain, the tolerance the person has for the pain lessons. The algorithm suddenly starts working for a short time. This experience of unmasking their pain, will cause that pain to come upon them. This pain is a good thing, it's the right pain, the pain that speaks the truth. The reaction would be to use the drug to mask the pain again, but that should not happen. They will need to experience this pain and follow the process of Pain and Pleasure Algorithm. They will need to follow the true knowledge others give them about their addition, choose a path in uncertainty, change when they fail, and not deny themselves healthy pleasure when they have success. They need that pleasure. They need pleasure from living life in the right way to save them, not pleasure from counterfeits that their addiction gave them.
Again, I'm not an addiction specialist, so get professional advice and invite others to do that same. I remind you this blog is for discussing this theory, not for making determinations for people. You can always talk to a professional about this theory, and they likely would say I already know that, or something disproving about this. Again, I'm not claiming any of this is correct.
The end game as best as it can me done, is that the human mind will eventually see the false pleasure as really pain, and may give up on it. With how powerful addiction is, it can be like a billionaire giving up all their wealth, to work at a fast food restaurant, and live in a tiny apartment. The sense of loss from loosing access to this pleasure will be soul crushing. (obviously good things are happening in their life at this point, they where not really a billionaire losing their money, that is just to describe the emotions behind it.) An addict must pursue the right pain, to continue to feed pleasure to themselves from good sources. If they don't the pain and pleasure algorithm is more likely to continue to temp them to relapse into their old bad habits.
Are all mind altering chemical bad? If a doctor did NOT give them to you. They are bad, talk to a doctor about them. This theory indicates you can't self medicate your mind with powerful mind altering chemicals. Your dependence on them will create a bias that you can't overcome alone, it will lead to addiction. People may need mind altering drugs, because of mental illness like depression and other things. The gold of all this is for the pain and pleasure algorithm to work, and if anyone's algorithm it not running correctly, or their own mind is feeding it wrong information, then it makes sense why medication would be a solution.
We should be patient with others, this algorithm may very between people. That variation may lead to problems that people don't have control over. Don't be ashamed to ask for help, and follow what medical doctors have advised you to do, and get second opinions from other doctors if you have doubts. No one should stop a treatment from a medical professional because of what I'm writing, or have any shame in what they are doing, if they are following directions from a doctor.
What I do hope is that we take a new look, at drug abuse.
Every time someone tells me that their drug expands their mind, and they become more creative, I wonder why they don't see this as it is. If a drug can change your perception, then how can you trust your perception? If you need creativity, work for it with your own natural mind! The pain and pleasure algorithm will help you as it is to do that. If you want to be creative, exercise that part of you, step out of the cave, find the correct pain, from among the incorrect pains.
Conclusion
Is it possible to hack this algorithm, like a computer, change something about it, so it doesn't know what is going on, and can do something it's programming would normally refuse to do? Yes, I believe this is the great dilemma of humanity. It becomes the complication behind knowing what is morally right, and morally wrong. Pleasure can't be used alone to indicate if something is good.
Pleasure has a purpose in our biology, the mission it's intended for can get thwarted. If we busy ourselves perusing false-rewards, our talents will be built around gaining false rewards. If this theory is right, it can give us a road map to follow, something to show where we are in learning. Perhaps we will not get lost as easily. Perhaps understand what is happening, and change our tactics. If this is all true.
Here is a super condensed version of how the Pain and Pleasure Algorithm makes relationships between pleasure and pain.
- Being given knowledge
- Acting on that knowledge
- Choosing direction in uncertainty
- Choosing change from failure
- Continuing until success is found
- Finding certainty
- Finding contentment.
- If more then one choice is available, the pain and pleasure of every choice is compared. The choice selected has the greatest positive difference between the possibility of pleasure, and the possibility of pain.
- The choice with the most positive pleasure amount to the pleasure to pain ratio will be repeated habitually, until another choice found has a higher positive pleasure amount in the pleasure and pain ratio. That choice will supersede the previous choice.
I can't read a phycology text book and learn about behaviorism or other phycology theories. It's beyond me so far. I can learn some of it, then I can lay awake at night and think about things over and over again until I finally blog about them to find some sense of closure. Like that will happen.
I would like to end this with a warning, don't believe what I'm saying, search and find out for yourself through your own research what is true. I'm not telling anyone to change anything about themselves because of this. Get good advice from professionals, and follow that.
You know by now I'm not an experienced writer, well accept this as just a compulsive tangent.
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