hedonism? buddhism?

[droqen]

i'm chasing down a thought that follows a conversation in Paradise in response to my 'On not creating desire'.

[droqen]

[AB]

[droqen]

from this page:

"Let thy desire flourish,
In order to let thy heart forget the beatifications for thee.
Follow thy desire, as long as thou shalt live.
Put myrrh upon thy head and clothing of fine linen upon thee,
Being anointed with genuine marvels of the gods' property.
Set an increase to thy good things;
Let not thy heart flag.
Follow thy desire and thy good.
Fulfill thy needs upon earth, after the command of thy heart,
Until there come for thee that day of mourning."
-  Egyptian Paraoh Intef, 11th Dynasty, circa 2150 BCE

"Seven classic objections to hedonism are presented and explained. Each is carefully formulated as an objection to the Default Hedonism introduced in Ch. 2. The objections are based on (a) the idea that some pleasures are base, disgusting, and worthless; (b) the concept of 'false pleasures'; (c) the alleged worthlessness of pleasure without knowledge; (d) difficulties in the measurement of pleasure and pain; (e) the idea that we can imagine a good life in which there is no pleasure; (f) the idea that the value of some worlds might be directly affected by such things as beauty or ugliness even when these factors have no bearing on the amounts of pleasure and pain in those worlds; and (g) the idea that the value of a world might be affected by the justice or injustice of the distribution of pleasure and pain in that world even though the total amounts of pleasure and pain are not affected."
-  From Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism.

[droqen]

- the idea that some pleasures are base, disgusting, and worthless (i'm iffy on this one, who judges?)
- the concept of 'false pleasures' (tell me more, what does this mean? false could mean anything)
- the alleged worthlessness of pleasure without knowledge (i don't care)
- difficulties in the measurement of pleasure and pain (numbers, i don't care)
- the idea that we can imagine a good life in which there is no pleasure
- the idea that the value of some worlds might be directly affected by such things as beauty or ugliness even when these factors have no bearing on the amounts of pleasure and pain in those worlds (what???)
- the idea that the value of a world might be affected by the justice or injustice of the distribution of pleasure and pain in that world even though the total amounts of pleasure and pain are not affected (hmm okay sure)

[droqen]

this second quote interested me, because of the phrase "false pleasures"; also, buddhism's "desire is suffering" came up in Paradise (hi tess!), and i sort of believe it, but i also believe in some of hedonism? the idea of false pleasures is interesting to me because it feels like it could potentially be close to my "created desires", which is in need of a clearer definition.

while i'm here, let's look at the other bullet points that i didn't dismiss.

- some pleasures are base, disgusting, and worthless
nah, i can cross this out. i'm not interested. maybe the 'worthless' part, but i expect from its siblings that we aren't going to be talking about anything interesting in this bullet point :/
- the idea that we can imagine a good life in which there is no pleasure
this is sort of buddhism, right? no desire, no pleasure. i think this is a good life.

aside - i like this:
"Follow thy desire, as long as thou shalt live."
and i think it's right to 'follow thy desire' while also minimizing it, but still letting it 'flourish'
ok back to the bullets

- the idea that [world value] might be affected by [things that have no bearing on pleasure/pain]
sure? uh? i wonder what the pure hedonist thinks of 'the value of [the] world'. i care about the value of the world! but i also think that pleasure-seeking without causing harm is a great way to a good world. i mean, if personal pleasure seeking is an exclusive goal of every individual then we will of course not achieve peak good world.

[droqen]

buddhism seeks to minimize suffering, hedonism seeks to maximize pleasure.

i wrote... "is there a part of buddhism where the way to rid yourself of desires is to fulfill them and be like "welp that's done then""

perhaps i agree more with minimizing suffering than maximizing pleasure, but there is suffering in unsatisfied desire... therefore the path to minimizing suffering is to satisfy existing desire, desire which has flourished or bloomed of no-one's accord but good living, in such a way that it does not need to return.

desire as dirt, desire as dust. there is dirt and dust everywhere, and i'd like to get better about tidying up my own home.

you know, looking at it this way,  i feel less concerned about the state of the world-at-large, esp. w/r/t others' practices of creating desires.  i'll learn to protect myself, to guard my desire from magical evocation.

[droqen]

do i "really" want this? if i satisfy this desire, what then?

if i satisfy this desire, what then?

is 'the good life' to be free of desire, or to be constantly satisfying desires?

is the desire-satisfier a genuine surmounter of obstacles or a high jumper?