Hello. I think every part of Creation, every species, is universally unique and I value that intrinsically. — Photios

Would you extend such a sentiment to complex non-living things like a robot that is controlled by a sophisticated AI?

In contrast, it seems like there are plenty of people like me that just don’t have any problem with modernity whatsoever. Given this, I tend to think that maybe we should give modernity more credit and maybe we should be more modest in our criticism of modern life. — TheHedoMinimalist

Perhaps it should be noted that modernity and modernism are two different things.

And of course, improvements happen when we aren't happy and/or satisfied with the things we have. Philosophers naturally see things to be corrected at our present society, in the one that they live in. It is a thing that is crucial for modernity, actually. How useful and beneficial their input truly is, is another question.

Perhaps it should be noted that modernity and modernism are two different things. — ssu

Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? I’m a little bit confused by your use of the word modernism. I thought modernism is just the belief that modernity is highly preferable in some manner but I don’t know if you have something else in mind.

Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? — TheHedoMinimalist

Yeah. There is a thesis in this subject and we have yet to define terms. Modernism is long gone and was a hugely influential movement that ultimately led to post-modernism.

This original statement:

have noticed that there seems to be quite a few philosophers who have a tendency of spending a lot of time criticizing modernity. — TheHedoMinimalist

I think this lacks precision. Thinkers across millennia are often critical of the era they live in. Each contemporary era has its preoccupations and ideas worthy of criticism. What is it about the present era that sticks out for you?

I think this lacks precision. Thinkers across millennia are often critical of the era they live in. Each contemporary era has its preoccupations and ideas worthy of criticism. What is it about the present era that sticks out for you? — Tom Storm

Well, I was talking about the views of many philosophers that I have encountered that seem to be critical about the age that they happen to be alive in. It just so happens that philosophers that I’m most familiar with are alive today and are talking about the 21st century as modernity. I agree with you that those criticisms are no better than the criticisms made in the past about the past time periods.

It's generally the job of philosophers to be critical of their times and the ideas in current circulation. Society is so atomized these days that it must be hard for philosophers to know where to begin or what to rate as important.

Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? — TheHedoMinimalist

Modernity is the present that we live in, it's a historical period of time. Modernism can be said to be a philosophical movement and can be understood in many ways, starting from an art style to being a broader societal view. Hence many of those philosophers are more likely to be critical of modernism rather than of modernity, starting with the post-modernists.

I think many times the clash happens when the so-called "modernist" solution, or what is viewed to be a "modernist" solution to some problem, which likely is the rather pragmatic, technocratic (that the solution is to use technology, science and experts) or free market oriented (let the market mechanism solve the problem) solution to a complex problem, which then the "anti-modernist" doesn't like (and likely sees a political power play in the modernist solution).

I think many times the clash happens when the so-called "modernist" solution, or what is viewed to be a "modernist" solution to some problem, which likely is the rather pragmatic, technocratic (that the solution is to use technology, science and experts) or free market oriented (let the market mechanism solve the problem) solution to a complex problem, which then the "anti-modernist" doesn't like (and likely sees a political power play in the modernist solution). — ssu

Well, I think the effectiveness of the modernist solution is that it led to the modernity that we are living in today. If one agrees that modernity is pretty good and up to snuff, then I think it would be hard for them to be too critical of modernism as the results seem to speak for itself.

@TheHedoMinimalist. I’m not sure why you fear debilitating pain in your later years so much, unless there’s something I don’t know about your present physical condition that would explain it. I’m a late-middle-aged man, and the pains I endure are typical of my age: arthritis in my knee requiring a brace, a pesky hernia causing occasional back pain, a tooth sensitive to hot and cold liquids, etc, but certainly nothing I would rather die than suffer.

I generally agree with your description of how Mozart’s music was appreciated/exploited in his own day. Yes, musicians of that time were dependent on kings and archbishops for their appointments, who sometimes suppressed or attempted to influence the character of the music produced. The same thing was operative concerning ancient literature, e.g. the obeisance to Caesar Augustus paid by Vergil and Ovid; but that didn’t compromise the greatness of their works. The truly great artists of antiquity knew both how to appease their bosses, and consummate their geniuses.

It strikes me as strange that you praise folk music as being “the McDonald’s” of music in olden times.
Didn’t you, in an earlier post, say one of the benefits of our day was being able to eat better than any emperor ever did? Surely you weren’t thinking of a Big Mac when you said that!...or were you???

As far as Mr. Collier is concerned, I frankly have neither the time nor inclination to look his music up and listen to it. Dave Brubeck was wonderful, and stirred my adolescent soul...but so did Elton John and Pink Floyd, and later on a few other pop/rock artists of that day. But once I was introduced to Mousorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique, I realized there were vistas of musical experience that had been hidden from me...not purposefully, but by a general denigration in the culture of classical things.

I know musical appreciation is a very subjective thing. All I can say—and this doesn’t help our discussion—is, let’s see whose name is remembered a hundred years from now: that of Jacob Collier, or that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The latter’s name has certainly outlasted all the names of all the “McDonald’s” folk musicians of his own day.

But a couple of the things you praise about the former’s music strike me as emanating from democratic prejudice. One is that you say that he writes music using notes and scales that have never been used before. Novelty is one of the hallmarks of democratic taste. Whatever is most emergent and new, contrary to what ever came before, is praised prima facie, at the expense of true skill and accomplishment.

Similar to this is the assertion that his music appeals to all cultures, not just the stultified Western one of a Mozart. O Hedomenos: what is more modern and ultra-democratic than all things multi-cultural? especially if they aren’t derived from the traditionally dominant one?

But I like Herodotus’ method better: he compared the different cultures of his day, not under the assumption that they were equally good in all things, but rather to find what was best in each. It is not novelty or equality that should guide us in our tastes, but rather the good.

You apparently live a life very independent of binding attachments to other ppl, apparently even to ppl of your own family, but the vast majority of other ppl don’t live this way. Most other ppl, especially women, consider the “romantic drama” surrounding sexual intercourse to be justified, and I imagine this is something you have either already, or soon will, experience yourself. Consider all the cultures of mankind past and present: do you find any that don’t consider sex more than just having fun, experiencing a thrill? Then, as a multi-culturalist yourself, you might learn something from that fact.

Much of the thrill of a sexual encounter in the good ole days was due to the fact that it was prohibited and forbidden. Now that all is laid bare and everything is permitted, what do we find? gay couples legally married, and bickering just as much as straight ones did, and still do...

...I imagine that your sexual conquest and pleasure, the girl old enough to be your mom, either coaxed you into a ho-hum regular not-as-exciting sexual routine, or pressured you to become more committed. Either way, what you sought was lost.

I personally hope that I’ll die around the age of 55 in a fairly painless manner. — TheHedoMinimalist

Why 55? I am ten years north of that and have never felt better. There are many people who have taken really good care of themselves (or have genetic privilege :) that are in great shape well into their 80's and even 90's now.

The problem with man is his thinking. Regardless of the era, there are people who make the best of it and those who make the worst of it.

Believing that things will always get better is a tough way to go through life, never satisfied, always looking for the "new and improved" version of every damn thing.

I’m not sure why you fear debilitating pain in your later years so much, unless there’s something I don’t know about your present physical condition that would explain it. I’m a late-middle-aged man, and the pains I endure are typical of my age: arthritis in my knee requiring a brace, a pesky hernia causing occasional back pain, a tooth sensitive to hot and cold liquids, etc, but certainly nothing I would rather die than suffer. — Todd Martin

Well, I think I’m just much more sensitive to physical pain than most other people. I get really upset if I have even a fairly bad cold. The worst moments of my life are when I got physically abused as a child and when I got circumcised at the age of 9. I was actually put to sleep during the circumcision but it was still hours of agony. I would do anything to avoid having to re-live those bad events.

Didn’t you, in an earlier post, say one of the benefits of our day was being able to eat better than any emperor ever did? Surely you weren’t thinking of a Big Mac when you said that!...or were you??? — Todd Martin

Actually, I was thinking about foods like cheap ramen noodles and a sandwich with just cheap white bread and bologna. I think a Big Mac just blows the food that the emperors ate out of the water. It was really hard to find any kind of sauce or seasoning or spices for their food. Plus, the food and water wasn’t very safe for consumption by modern standards. They didn’t know about germ theory or how diseases got spread so they didn’t bother sanitizing anything. Also, they didn’t have access to refrigeration so they couldn’t have delicious desserts like ice cream and meat and dairy products spoiled super fast. So, even modern day budget food seems to be better than what the emperors had. Big Macs are pretty damn delicious though. I think they would be worth their weight in gold during the 16th century.

As far as Mr. Collier is concerned, I frankly have neither the time nor inclination to look his music up and listen to it. — Todd Martin

Well, isn’t that kind of the problem with people that don’t appreciate Mozart? That they just don’t have the time nor inclination to try his music. You kinda have to listen to a musician in order to know what you are missing. Though, admittedly few people would like Collier if they listened to him kinda like few people would like Mozart if they listened to him.

I realized there were vistas of musical experience that had been hidden from me...not purposefully, but by a general denigration in the culture of classical things. — Todd Martin

What is a culture of classical things?

I know musical appreciation is a very subjective thing. All I can say—and this doesn’t help our discussion—is, let’s see whose name is remembered a hundred years from now: that of Jacob Collier, or that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The latter’s name has certainly outlasted all the names of all the “McDonald’s” folk musicians of his own day. — Todd Martin

Well, I think luck plays a pretty big role in determining who ends up being remembered and who gets forgotten. For example, the composer Bach didn’t become popular until 200 years after his death. Mozart was also not super popular while he was alive and his music had to be revived long after his death. In contrast, a composer like Wagner was really famous during his lifetime but became a mere footnote in the history of classical music. Jacob Collier has a sizable following today and he might be regarded as being better than Mozart 300 years from now because you never know. These opinions about who is a greater composer are often dependent on the opinions of an establishment of posh music critics.

Whatever is most emergent and new, contrary to what ever came before, is praised prima facie, at the expense of true skill and accomplishment. — Todd Martin

But, how do you know that Mozart is the one with the true skill and accomplishment? You never even listened to Jacob Collier whereas I have heard both Mozart and Collier and I think Collier is more talented. Isn’t my testimonial evidence about this more reliable given that I have actually listened to both composers whereas you haven’t?

Similar to this is the assertion that his music appeals to all cultures, not just the stultified Western one of a Mozart. O Hedomenos: what is more modern and ultra-democratic than all things multi-cultural? especially if they aren’t derived from the traditionally dominant one? — Todd Martin

I feel like you misunderstood the point that I was trying to make. I was not arguing that all cultures were equal; I was arguing that musical taste is largely predicated on what musical patterns you have been exposed to growing up. For example, there is some music that sounds out of tune to western ears that sounds in tune to ears of a particular culture which was engrained in feeling that the note belongs in the music. Collier is known to be a master of something called microtonality which means that his compositional abilities are not limited to the notes on a western piano. He can make notes that normally sound out of tune to us sound kinda mysterious and strange yet somehow befitting the music. Mozart didn’t have that talent and it’s a rare talent to have. You don’t see many microtonal composers in the Western world. Of course, Collier can also compose great music using just the notes that can be played by a piano as well. So, he can arguably do what Mozart did to some extent yet Mozart had no ability to write anything using notes he wasn’t familiar with. That is an asymmetry of talent worth pointing out I think.

You apparently live a life very independent of binding attachments to other ppl, apparently even to ppl of your own family, but the vast majority of other ppl don’t live this way. — Todd Martin

Yes, but why should I live like other people? It’s also worth noting that this trend is changing because of modernity. So, my question is why exactly is it bad that people are slowly becoming more like me?

Consider all the cultures of mankind past and present: do you find any that don’t consider sex more than just having fun, experiencing a thrill? — Todd Martin

Yes but modernity is creating new cultures that are challenging the old trends. I’m saying that I think that there’s nothing wrong with challenging traditional relationship preferences because as I think people are slowly changing their preferences and that this preference change isn’t a tragedy in my mind. Just because something has been popular throughout history doesn’t mean that it ought to be popular forever.

Much of the thrill of a sexual encounter in the good ole days was due to the fact that it was prohibited and forbidden. Now that all is laid bare and everything is permitted, what do we find? — Todd Martin

Umm.... I still find it very thrilling even though it isn’t really stigmatized as much.

...I imagine that your sexual conquest and pleasure, the girl old enough to be your mom, either coaxed you into a ho-hum regular not-as-exciting sexual routine, or pressured you to become more committed. Either way, what you sought was lost. — Todd Martin

I was actually just talking about a sexual fantasy that I have rather than an actual event that occurred. I don’t sleep with my coworkers and I just don’t get invited to cuddle and have sex very often. I’m the one who has to invite the girls over for those things because we don’t really live in the kind of world that I think it might be cool to live in. Nonetheless, there are ways to get women to sleep with you without the promise of a committed relationship and I like modernity because it makes this sort of thing safer and easier than before. I also think it’s kinda epistemically arrogant for you to think that you likely understand better regarding what I want in a sexual relationship than what I’m claiming that I want in such relationships. After all, I have private assess to my emotional states, desires, and beliefs. In contrast, you never even met me but somehow you feel that I likely have some sort of a secret desire to have a romantic relationship as though you have some kind of private knowledge about the inner depths of my mind or that you think that some psychological claim about human nature is more reliable than my testimonial evidence predicated on my introspection that suggests that I don’t want to have a relationship. I personally think that it’s more rational to take people at their word most of the time as I think most people know themselves far better than some random guy on the internet knows them.

Why 55? I am ten years north of that and have never felt better. There are many people who have taken really good care of themselves (or have genetic privilege :) that are in great shape well into their 80's and even 90's now. — synthesis

Well, I would have to wait and see if I end having health problems. It’s kinda common to start having them before 55 though

Well, I would have to wait and see if I end having health problems. It’s kinda common to start having them before 55 though — TheHedoMinimalist

Live each day really well and it will take care of itself.

@TheHedoMinimalist. Let me clear up a couple misunderstandings first: when I said, “

I realized there were vistas of musical experience that had been hidden from me...not purposefully, but by a general denigration in the culture of classical things. — Todd Martin

, I should have rather said, to remove ambiguity, “...by a general denigration of classical things in the (present) culture”.

Secondly, when I said,

Most other ppl, especially women, consider the “romantic drama” surrounding sexual intercourse to be justified, and I imagine this is something you have either already, or soon will, experience yourself. — Todd Martin

, I didn’t mean that you would experience it in your soul, as a felt desire or emotion; just that you would experience it from the women you get involved with, drawing from my many relationships with them over my lifetime. I don’t presume to know anything more about you than you tell me. Of course, like everybody, I make judgements about ppl from what they tell me about themselves.

I took your advice, and I looked Collier up on YouTube and listened/watched, so now we are even: we have both heard/experienced Mozart and Collier. What do you think my impression was; I, this random guy on the internet who, actually, is not so random now, since I to you, like you to me, have shared particular, even sometimes intimate, details of each others’ lives? Before you read further, turn away from the computer screen and imagine, knowing what you do of my aesthetics, what I’m going to say about Mr. Collier’s music, and only then proceed to my next paragraph...

...he is nothing more than a fancy pop-star and musical stuntman. The gulf b/w him and a Mozart or Beethoven or Brahms is so deep and unfathomable that no comparison can be made. I heard nothing in his music that was not predicated on Western harmony, and everything else I heard was just showmanship. The only thing I might say to his credit is that he is the Big Mac we see in the advertisement rather than the one we hold in our hands.

You are wrong about the diet of the ancients: they had excellent sauces and spices, drawn straight from the garden, both aristocrat and plebs, and the former had blocks of ice drawn down from the snowy mountaintops to cool their perishables. And to think that the pleasure they either experienced or hoped for from their sexual conquests suffered from lack of hygiene is to fail to appreciate that there is nothing better in bed, for a good ole southern boy, than a skanky redneck whore.

But let me ask you this, O Hedomenos: what effect do you think your physical abuse as a child had on the way that you perceive the world now?

I didn’t mean that you would experience it in your soul, as a felt desire or emotion; just that you would experience it from the women you get involved with, drawing from my many relationships with them over my lifetime — Todd Martin

Ahh ok, I actually agree with you there. It’s kinda hard to have regular casual sex with a woman for awhile without there being any discussions about relationships or without giving the woman some kind of financial incentive to keep things casual.

I, this random guy on the internet who, actually, is not so random now, since I to you, like you to me, have shared particular, even sometimes intimate, details of each others’ lives? — Todd Martin

Well, I now realize that I was kinda wrong to assume that you would know less about me than other people because you are a random guy on the internet. I actually share more private information with random people on the internet than I do with my own family. Heck, it is actually large internet corporations like Google that know me best because they know my internet search history lol.

I heard nothing in his music that was not predicated on Western harmony, — Todd Martin

Well, I’m kinda suspecting that you are not very familiar with western harmony or harmony in general. As a music theory nerd and someone that has dabbled in songwriting and composition, I can notice lots of extremely unusual harmonies in pretty much every one of his songs. I also want to point out that I actually enjoy the music of Mozart more than I enjoy the music of Collier. Collier is a little too experimental even for my tastes. I believe that it is more difficult to compose music like Collier due to my admittedly limited but fairly decent understanding of music theory. He constantly uses unusual time signatures and it does make composing music more difficult as I have tried to compose music with those time signatures and I don’t even know where to start. By contrast, classical music usually just uses a 2/4 time signature if I recall correctly and many classical pieces are non-rhythmic or they have a loose relationship with rhythm. This means that you don’t really need to worry about the groove of the song as a classical composer and that does make classical composition easier in an important respect to groove centered genres like funk, disco, pop, jazz, hip hop, and jazz fusion.

As far as the harmony used by someone like Mozart, he used the same chords as pop musicians but his chords were more spread out and this is pretty common in classical music. By contrast, Collier uses very rare chord inversions and he typically uses 5 note chords which were actually popularized by classical composers like Debussy who came after Mozart. Collier also incorporates really fast chord progressions which you rarely see in any genre except jazz and jazz fusion. You mentioned that Collier is a pop star. I would agree with you that he can pass off as one but he also incorporates elements of jazz fusion, funk, hip hop, and electronic music. I think he pretty much invented his own genre of music. Collier also occasionally uses notes that are in between the notes that are found on a standard piano and he usually mixes those notes in a composition with mostly normal notes. This is one of the things that give his music that disorienting feel that it has. Though, to give classical composers credit, I think they were extremely talented at composing music for large orchestras which might be something that Collier wouldn’t be as good at. Writing operas is pretty hard as well. Also, classical composers didn’t have access to recording software so they had to write everything down in sheet music which was super time consuming and it made a trial and error approach to composition a bit more difficult. I think that Collier is more talented than Mozart not adjusted to the fact that he has a clear technological advantage. Collier has the privilege of being able to work on his compositions even while he’s on the toilet or waiting in line. Mozart had to spend time drawing out the sheet music and that would limit you in many ways as a composer.

You are wrong about the diet of the ancients: they had excellent sauces and spices, drawn straight from the garden, both aristocrat and plebs, and the former had blocks of ice drawn down from the snowy mountaintops to cool their perishables. — Todd Martin

Well, that isn’t what I have heard. I would interested in knowing where you read about this. Admittedly, my claims about the diets of emperors are just bits and pieces of what I remember from school and what I remember from watching history videos on YouTube.

But let me ask you this, O Hedomenos: what effect do you think your physical abuse as a child had on the way that you perceive the world now? — Todd Martin

Well, the physical abuse was really just one incident that lasted for about 15 seconds. It was no worse than the typical ass whooping that lots of kids my age have gotten as punishment. I have had friends and acquaintances share similar stories from their childhood with pride as they believed that this physical punishment has disciplined them and made them into a better person. The interesting thing about corporal punishment is that it affects different children in different ways. I would say that I feel traumatized by the experience because of my sensitivity to physical pain and because of my belief that intense suffering is really difficult to justify. If I wasn’t so anti-suffering then I probably wouldn’t care that much about that really short moment in the past.

@TheHedoMinimalist. O Hedomenos, I haven’t much time tonight to respond to all that you said, so I will only respond to what seems most remarkable: that you would, after so many years, consider it noteworthy that you suffered 15 seconds of physical abuse as a child, and were traumatized by that, simply from the physical pain. The physical pain could not have lasted more than a few minutes, hours or days. Consider all the countless children that have endured such abuse constantly, almost every day of their childhood, and what trauma that must have permanently afflicted on their souls!...don’t you feel a bit like you are exaggerating things when you publicly state that you were physically abused as a child?

Having said that, I recall that my oldest brother held a grudge against our mother into his adulthood because she slapped him in the face in front of our grandma, uncles and aunts, and cousins: he, a small boy, found a long gray hair in his food, and held it up for all to see, and proclaimed, “there’s a hair in my food!” at which point Mama’s hand came down forcefully on his tender cheek: “Don’t you ever say that again!” she admonished him. It wasn't the sting on his cheek that he never forgot; it was rather the sting of injustice: this was probably a thing he had either never experienced (a hair in his food), or had never been reprimanded for, at home.

At any rate, as I said, my brother did not hold his grudge because of the physical pain—how can physical pain that is soon gone last in the memory of a child?—but rather because of the sting of injustice. So I suspect your 15 seconds of pain as a child must have been etched in your memory for some reason other than that it was physically painful (?)

As far as your assumptions about my musical experience go, I can tell you I am an amateur piano/guitar player; I read music and have studied harmony and voice-leading. On piano I play Mozart, Bach, Schubert, my own compositions, and my own arrangements of Baptist hymns; on guitar I play old Elton John and John Denver and Pink Floyd and Carly Simon, etc. I wish there was a way we could share our compositions/performances, for I would like to read and play what you have written.

But it is late, and I must go...

don’t you feel a bit like you are exaggerating things when you publicly state that you were physically abused as a child? — Todd Martin

Suppose that I were to get sexually touched by a pedophile for 15 seconds when I was a child. Wouldn’t you think that it is appropriate to call that sexual abuse? If it’s appropriate to call that sexual abuse then I don’t see why it wouldn’t be appropriate to call my 15 second beating physical abuse. After all, many people including myself would have preferred to get molested.

Consider all the countless children that have endured such abuse constantly, almost every day of their childhood, and what trauma that must have permanently afflicted on their souls! — Todd Martin

Yeah, I probably would have tried to kill myself by now if I were in their shoes.

At any rate, as I said, my brother did not hold his grudge because of the physical pain—how can physical pain that is soon gone last in the memory of a child?—but rather because of the sting of injustice. So I suspect your 15 seconds of pain as a child must have been etched in your memory for some reason other than that it was physically painful (?) — Todd Martin

No, I think it’s mostly about the physical pain because I remember the sensation of that pain quite vividly. It felt like someone had broke my body in half. I think the guy threw me on the grass or something like that. I think he then continued to slam my body on the ground covered in grass because the sharp pain in my back kept repeating. Also, I actually was being an awful brat that whole day and that caused him to snap and attack me. I kinda empathize with him and understand why he did it. Though, I really think this person should never be allowed around kids again. That moment really haunts me to this day because the pain was just unbearable for those 15 seconds. I think it did teach me the value of respecting others but I still feel very traumatized by this moment even if there is some positive narrative that could be attached to the experience. Once again, I would emphasize that I’m very sensitive against physical pain. Like, you know how professional mma fighters don’t seem to feel any pain even after they have been hit over 100 times by their very strong opponent. Well, I’m like the exact opposite of an mma fighter. I’m hypersensitive to physical punishment.

@TheHedoMinimalist. I don’t know, O Hedomenos. You say some surprising things, for example, that you would have preferred 15 seconds of sexual rather than physical abuse...

...when I was a young man, a sexual predator enticed me into a secret location and attempted to force himself on me. A struggle ensued, and during the struggle my shirt was torn, I endured scrapes on my back and knees, and had the tip of an ink pin (he tried to trick me into thinking he wielded a knife) driven into the midst of my palm. I felt like I was fighting for my life, and when I had escaped I felt violated, even though he had failed to achieve his goal.

My psychological trauma lasted for a few weeks or months. I had a few bad dreams...then I got over it. Now it is just an old memory, something that happened when I was young. I never think about it. Images from it never enter my mind uninvited.

Of course, if he HAD overpowered me and had had his way with me, then things would, I’m sure, have been very different for me; or, if he had REALLY wielded a knife, instead of an ink pen. I have no good idea anymore just how long the struggle lasted: maybe it was 30 seconds, or a minute; maybe it was only 15 seconds.

At any rate, the pain from my wounds was absolutely unremarkable; the pain to my soul more substantial, but not eternal...

...many years later, I was in a bad relationship with a woman. She tried to shut the door on me and lock me out of the apartment. In a fit of rage I struck at the door with my left hand to try to keep the door from closing, and, because I was enraged, mistakenly struck the glass instead of the wood...

...blood was everywhere. When I extracted my hand and saw the two bloody chasms the jagged edges of the broken pane had carved into my wrist, I glanced up at my girlfriend: her face was frozen in horror. My first thought was, “FINALLY! This is over (meaning our relationship: it had taken such a catastrophe to end it for good)”...

...but then, immediately afterwards, all that concerned me was the preservation of my life, for I thought I was bleeding to death (though no blood was spurting out like a geyser, the tale tale sign of a ruptured artery). I cried for her to call 911, which she did, and then cried for her to find a rope or belt to tourniquet my arm, which she did...

I passed out from fear before the ambulance ever got there; I passed out from pain later on lying on the ER bed when a couple of doctors-in-training started messing in (examining) the wounds. But before I lost consciousness I remember crying out, “I don’t want to die!”...when I awoke, I saw the faces of two or three nurses smiling at me, the ones who had rushed in to elevate me and raise my blood-pressure, and I felt silly and ashamed that I thought I was going to die!

One tendon was severed, and stitched back together, and though I have occasionally felt unusual pain and weakness in my left hand, nevertheless I can say that it has not prevented me from performing any of the tasks of daily life that I need it for; especially piano and guitar. And two tattoos, the natural kind as opposed to the unnatural, the sort added for some sort of ostentation or self-advertisement, streak down my left arm to remind me of the heedlessness of anger.

Nor do I hold in my mind the trauma of that pain and relive it. I have experienced similar pain since then: a third scar was added a few years ago when, weed-eating a grassy embankment, I slipped and fell and empaled my left wrist on a sharp woody stalk. This time I was less fearful. All I could see was the butt end of the wood protruding from my wrist, so, thinking it a small thing, I took a pair of pliers and tried to extricate it myself...but it broke off, and I realized I must go to the ER...

...once there, I watched the doctor, after he stuck me with several anesthetizing needles, pull out tiny pieces of wood. He kept digging deeper. At one point he grabbed something that wouldn’t come out, and I , who was watching this the whole time, exclaimed, “Are you sure you have hold of a piece of wood?”...for I was afraid he was gonna yank a tendon or ligament outta me. At this point he removed the forceps and exclaimed, “I think I got it all”, stitched up my wound and sent me home...

...but he hadn’t got it all, for, within a couple days red streaks were running up my left arm and I had to go back to the ER. They saw something in the ultra-scan, scheduled a surgery, and this different doctor put me under and cut out a piece of woody stalk that was imbedded in my wrist that was more than an inch long!...

Now I have three tattoos running down my left wrist: two due to anger, one, to folly: for, had I worn proper shoes that day I weed-ate the bank, I never would have slipped and fell and impaled my wrist on a sharp woody stalk.

As for the moral to my stories, I haven’t the time now, at this late hour, to dwell therein. Read them and tell me your impression. One thing I’m sure of: the fear of pain and death is far greater than its actualization.

Well, I think your stories mostly just suggest that you are less sensitive to physical pain than I am and you are also probably more afraid of death than I am. I actually never recall ever being anxious about death and my mortality but I am constantly anxious about the future physical pain that I may have to endure. It’s possible that I’m not anxious about death because death seems so far away for me but I’m curious to know if you ever felt anxious about death before you had one of your injuries that you mentioned in your comment.

Also, I find it a little weird that most people are perfectly ok with having a doctor touch their genitals but they feel very violated if a pervert touches their genitals for sexual gratification. Why do you think that people are like that? I always just found that very confusing to be honest. The hatred of physical pain seems much more straightforward though. If a doctor causes physical pain for a medically valid reason, then it’s still viewed as being pretty bad because the badness of physical pain seems to be less context dependent. I’m not a very sentimental guy so I have a hard time caring about the intentions behind the person who caused me suffering and I care more about the actual sensation that produced the suffering.

@TheHedoMinimalist. Well, I never feared death in that last story, O Hedomenos, the one where I impaled my wrist on the woody stalk; but, since you ask, yes: I feared death on at least two other occasions, when I was a child, and the fear hinged on death by obstruction...

Once, when I was a boy, I became rather constipated; for what reason I cannot tell. The next morning, before I was to go to school, I went to the bathroom, and, attempting to defecate, found that it just wouldn’t come out...or, it certainly wasn’t going to come out easily, as it always had before then. I was afraid to force it; because, for some reason, I thought that if I forced it, and it only came part ways out, that I would somehow perish.

I told my mama I had an “upset stomach”, and she kept me home from school and, because she thought I meant I had diarrhea, gave me something to stop me up!...you can imagine the pickle I was in now (or the pickle that was in me!). At any rate, by the end of that excruciating day, the misunderstanding was cleared up, I received a much needed enema, and the world, and my colon, were restored to order.

The second obstructionist drama has two acts. The first act opens with me and my twin brother seated with our cousin Craig on Uncle Ivory’s couch, watching TV. I was drinking something that had large cubes of ice in it, and as I sucked on one of those cubes it got somehow sucked down my throat and lodged in my windpipe.

I sprang immediately up off the couch, pointing to my throat and trying to say, “I have a piece of ice in my throat!”...which, of course, was unintelligible to them in my state: my brother thought I was trying to imitate Donald Duck. After several seconds of repeating myself and trying to cough up the foreign object, the next thing I remember is watching the ice cube slide along the linoleum floor. My brother says Uncle Ivory slapped me on the back, which seems very plausible and which I cannot deny, though I never felt the slap.

Soon afterwards Craig and I and my brother were playing with toys on the carpeted steps as though no one had almost died. The only after-effect was a soreness in my larynx, which was gone within a day or two... but this scene in the drama was just prolegomenon for the one that would occur a few years later...

...in the final scene, my older sister has taken me to the movie theater to see an R-rated movie (she must have snuck me in somehow). The movie was one from the early 70s whose title I have long since forgotten. There were a lot of dirty words spoken in it that I had never heard and didn’t understand (though she did, and laughed at them in the way that ppl do who pretend they are morally outraged but delight in the scandalous nature of it).

In the movie, two men are cutting logs next to a lake when one of the logs falls on one of them and pins him in the shallows. His head is above the water, but the tide is rising, and as it does, his head gets pushed down further and further toward the surface of the water as the log rolls, and it is clear to both that it will soon be under water...

Once his head is under, his friend begins delivering him mouth-to-mouth inhalations of oxygen... until they both are overcome by the comical nature of two men kissing under water, and the friend laughs out his next delivery in bubbles, and his pinned buddy expires, and his friend grieves and vainly attempts to pull him up, crying out to the universe...

It was many days before I got over this. The thought of expiring from obstruction of the breathing passage, by H2O either frozen or liquid, was unendurable...so I gradually learned to just not think about it. I eventually became an excellent swimmer, and I have never felt any compunction sucking on ice since, nor on a lozenge or candy. These are the sorts of trauma you’re supposed to suffer as a child and then move on from, get over with.

@TheHedoMinimalist. O Hedomenos...

The “badness” of pain is VERY “context-dependent”. You say there is no difference b/w a doctor touching your genitals, and a pervert doing the same? Their separate motives make no difference, because the pain is the same?...

...are you not heartened to be with a doctor to whom you have gone to relieve yourself of some malady of your privates, and if a little pain is involved, don’t you endure it, trusting that it is for your better health? A needle stuck in your arm is painful, right? But isn’t the thought of being safe from a deadly disease worth a little painful prick? On the other hand, do you entrust your health to a pervert? What if his perversion is delight in cutting boys’ balls off? How would you know unless yours went missing?

You say, when you got slammed on your back as a child, that “the pain was just unbearable for those 15 seconds”, and that that is why it “haunts you to this day”. This just doesn’t make sense. Either the pain lasted a lot longer than that, days or weeks or months (in which case your fear makes more sense), or you’re making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Who in their right mind fears 15 seconds of pain more than an eternity of death? “Fifteen seconds of unbearable pain” is a contradiction in terms, for nothing is unbearable that lasts only fifteen seconds, for it’s over after fifteen seconds, and then you no longer have to bear it.

Do you have this same reaction when you stub your toe over a chair-leg, or receive a paper-cut on your finger, or bang your knee against a door-edge? For everyday life offers plenty of opportunity to experience momentary excruciating pain. But we don’t fear it; for, though it be excruciating, we know from past experience that it is merely temporary. If you are so sensitive to pain, you must live day-to-day in fear of even these most common sorts; what kind of life is that, fearing to move about a room, or lift a hot coffee-pot, or handle a piece of paper?

well, I think luck plays a pretty big role in determining who ends up being remembered and who gets forgotten. For example, the composer Bach didn’t become popular until 200 years after his death. Mozart was also not super popular while he was alive and his music had to be revived long after his death. In contrast, a composer like Wagner was really famous during his lifetime but became a mere footnote in the history of classical music. Jacob Collier has a sizable following today and he might be regarded as being better than Mozart 300 years from now because you never know. These opinions about who is a greater composer are often dependent on the opinions of an establishment of posh music critics. — TheHedoMinimalist

Have you considered exactly why Mozart’s music was not popular in his day, yet was revived, or why Wagner became a footnote, despite his popularity? Is it wise to judge the quality of something by its popularity, to take a poll? Is the majority of everyone’s opinion the proper standard of judgement?...

... the reason Mozart’s music lasted was because his peers, not the general population, considered him worthy: Beethoven had his piano concertos to study as models for his own; Schubert thought his music the finest available, and Tchaikovsky called Mozart “the Jesus Christ” of music. Should we follow the experts’ opinion on this, or rather the people’s, with whom he fell out of favor?

Modernity and Postmodernity are indefensible. Nihilism is a philosophically indefensible position.

A needle stuck in your arm is painful, right? — Todd Martin

Not really, I don’t find that painful at all.

But isn’t the thought of being safe from a deadly disease worth a little painful prick? — Todd Martin

Yes, but it’s not worth suffering intense pain(for me at least). The badness of pain is not just determined by its duration but also the intensity of the pain. If a pain is very intense then I think it is really bad and catastrophic even if it is short lasting. A pinprick isn’t intense at all and it isn’t even long lasting so it’s not the kind of pain that I’m concerned about.

On the other hand, do you entrust your health to a pervert? — Todd Martin

If that pervert happens to be a doctor then yes unless given a reason not to. Honestly, how do you know your current doctor is not a pervert? He might have chosen this line of work because he’s glad that he’s allowed to grab men’s balls for all you know. It only bothers you if you know that he gets aroused by it. So, why does the mere knowledge of his excitement of touching your privates something that might bother you? Or would it really bother you?

What if his perversion is delight in cutting boys’ balls off? — Todd Martin

Well, that would be bad because that would cause physical pain and having balls is good for other stuff that is valuable like getting women to be comfortable having sexual relations with you. But, I was asking about why people would be bothered by a pervert who only wants to molest you since doctors typically only molest you for medical reasons except prostate exams and colonoscopies. But, those can also cause a significant amount of physical pain or discomfort and that’s the main explanation for why we are bothered by those procedures to some extent.

Who in their right mind fears 15 seconds of pain more than an eternity of death? — Todd Martin

Well, first of all, I don’t think it makes sense to talk of death as eternity because you don’t perceive time after you die. I think time is actually just a subjective experience and so it doesn’t seem to make sense to talk about eternities that you don’t actually experience. Second of all, we are all going to die eventually anyways so why is it that much worse to die sooner? How much benefit am I going to get for living past the age of 55 anyways? Thirdly, I just want to illiterate the point that I made earlier about the intensity of the pain being just as important as the duration of the pain. For me, the intensity is even more important because extra duration of pain has at least some silver lining as it gives me time to adjust to the pain and it will just start to hurt less. Intense pains, on the other hand, make their sting before your mind is even prepared to deal with it. Fourthly, I think that this 15 seconds of pain that I have experienced might have actually been worse than any pain that you have experienced in your life because I am just more sensitive to pain. Of course, if I had to undergo your painful life moments, I would really just go insane but luckily I hadn’t put myself in that sort of a situation quite yet.

Do you have this same reaction when you stub your toe over a chair-leg, or receive a paper-cut on your finger, or bang your knee against a door-edge? — Todd Martin

No, because those things didn’t hurt me as bad as the physical abuse did. The intensity of pain from different stimuli can also kind of differ from person to person. You seem to be listing very mild forms of pain in comparison to my scenario of being beaten by a grown man as a child. Trust me, it caused me much more pain than stubbing my toe would. I might partially be because I was still a child with a fragile child’s body and that would also increase the pain involved.

Have you considered exactly why Mozart’s music was not popular in his day, yet was revived, or why Wagner became a footnote, despite his popularity? — Todd Martin

Yes, I have actually. I think it has to do with the music education establishment choosing to fetishize Mozart’s music over Wagner’s. I’m not convinced that it is really based that much on merit. A lot of it is also preserving a status quo music curriculum that was created 100 years ago. Also, I wonder how much Wagner’s white supremacy tendencies and how Hitler loved him had to do with his eventual fading. There is a lot of politics that go into determining what composers get taught to children at school. I personally have learned about Mozart in music class at elementary school at 3rd grade in the US. Before then, the only composers I knew were Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Beethoven. This is because I learned about them in 1st grade also in music class at an elementary school in Russia. Hmm..... I wonder why they taught me about Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov instead of Mozart in Russian elementary school. It’s probably not predicated on the merit of those composers. Also, first author that I had learned about was some guy named Alexander Pushkin. In Russia, this guy is more admired than Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Shakespeare. In the US, I never heard anyone talk about him. The Americans consider Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to be the greatest Russian authors. Again, I’m not sure how much of that has to do with merit and not politics and tradition.

Is it wise to judge the quality of something by its popularity, to take a poll? — Todd Martin

No it’s not, but Mozart had to be more popular than other composers to some demographic in order to be remembered. If it was just a demographic of skilled composers then he would deserve to be remembered above other composers. I suspect that his popularity was more influenced by his popularity among the wealthy and powerful who continued insuring that his music got introduced at least to those who studied in the music academy. Of course, this would cause future composers to be influenced by him as well and they will have nice words to say about him as well.

@TheHedoMinimalist. O Hedomenos, when you say,

You seem to be listing very mild forms of pain in comparison to my scenario of being beaten by a grown man as a child. Trust me, it caused me much more pain than stubbing my toe would. It might partially be because I was still a child with a fragile child’s body and that would also increase the pain involved. — TheHedoMinimalist

.

a couple of things stand out to me: firstly, if we are to judge the intensity of pain objectively, wouldn’t we do so by observing the reaction to it by the one experiencing it? For example, if I stub my toe on something (and who hasn’t done so?) and either utter nothing or at most cry, “ouch!”, and continue on as though nothing happened, you would assume that the pain was rather mild. But if I instead double over (and to whom has this never occurred?) and cry, “oh, oh, oh!” over and over and curse and moan for a good while before I can right myself and do anything else, wouldn’t you assume the pain was excruciating? And we don’t even need to be objective in the matter, because EVERYONE has experienced the excruciating pain of severely stubbing a little toe and being doubled over, momentarily, in great pain...which, thank god, soon eases off, though I doubt within just 15 seconds. So when you say that the examples of pain I listed are “very mild” in comparison to what you experienced, I just can’t believe that, at least judging pain by mere intensity.

Secondly, the rhetoric you use to describe your painful experience is revealing to me, for the words you use to contrast your unique pain with my pedestrian examples are, that it was inflicted by “a grown man” on “a child”. A grown man is indeed much stronger than a child and can therefore inflict great pain on him...but a door jamb is more solid than a grown man, and can inflict great pain on my toe also. What’s the difference then? The only difference is that the grown man might have done differently, while the door had no choice.

The real reason the experience of being slammed to the ground was traumatic to you is not because it was painful to your body—that pain only lasted 15 seconds—but because it was painful to your soul, and THAT pain has lasted all your life; and until you realize this, you will continue to misattribute the trauma to mere physical pain, and you will fail to realize that physical pain is always context-dependent; that is, on how it touched your soul.

In your search for an excuse as to why the pain was so traumatic, you offer the theory that it was because your youthful body was so “fragile”...but everybody knows that a child’s bones are more supple and pliant than an adult’s; and, besides, you don’t say any bones were even broken.

The real reason this event of your childhood has lived on in your memory is because a soul in a stronger body lost its temper, and took it out on a weaker one unjustly. You even give excuses for the perpetrator, saying you were being a “brat”, and that this justified his actions; then you give excuses for your trauma, saying it was the result of the experience of mere physical pain!

If any of my words have cast the shadow of a doubt in your mind about the etiology of your trauma, then let me know, and I will continue to attempt to persuade you; otherwise, I will leave off, and consider my efforts to have been in vain.

a couple of things stand out to me: firstly, if we are to judge the intensity of pain objectively, wouldn’t we do so by observing the reaction to it by the one experiencing it? — Todd Martin

Stubbing my toe hasn’t ever caused me to scream as much as my physical abuse did. Stubbing my toe only ever caused me to have a mild scream. Me getting beat up caused me to scream very loudly for the whole 15 seconds. My body did also hurt afterwards for several hours but that pain wasn’t nearly as painful or important so I wasn’t even thinking about it. Secondly, I don’t think you can observe the intensity of pain objectively. I think asking people about how badly that pain hurt is a far more accurate way of gauging the intensity of that pain.

So when you say that the examples of pain I listed are “very mild” in comparison to what you experienced, I just can’t believe that, at least judging pain by mere intensity. — Todd Martin

So, is it not possible that you just experience pain differently from the way that I experience pain? I don’t see why it’s so implausible to think that people have vastly different ways of experiencing pain. Rather, I find any sort of universalism about human nature and the way humans experience things to be highly implausible as I think people just experience the world in vastly different ways.

A grown man is indeed much stronger than a child and can therefore inflict great pain on him...but a door jamb is more solid than a grown man, and can inflict great pain on my toe also. What’s the difference then? — Todd Martin

Well, a grown man beating me up with a door would be more painful than than a grown beating me up with his body alone but you are extremely unlikely to accidentally hit yourself with a door as hard as the big muscular guy who hit me did as he was using the force of his body more efficiently as to increase the damage caused by his hits. It matters not only how hard the thing that hits you is but also how hard it trying to hit you. To use an analogy, imagine a wooden robot that is as thick as a door beating you up. Well, that robot can probably hurt you much worse than you accidentally stubbing your toe on a door can. This is because the robot will swing it’s robot arms in the most efficient way to hurt you. In contrast, doors aren’t trying to hurt you and so they aren’t going to be as efficient at doing so.

The real reason the experience of being slammed to the ground was traumatic to you is not because it was painful to your body—that pain only lasted 15 seconds—but because it was painful to your soul, and THAT pain has lasted all your life; and until you realize this, you will continue to misattribute the trauma to mere physical pain, and you will fail to realize that physical pain is always context-dependent; that is, on how it touched your soul. — Todd Martin

Well, I don’t know what else it can be except the physical pain. You mentioned that you thought it’s related to me feeling that a grown man beating up a child is unjust. I did feel it was a bit unjust indeed but I think that theory has other explanatory weaknesses in the context of my life because I think my experience of getting circumcised when I was 9 years old was also traumatic. That experience had nothing to do with justice. That procedure was actually done for a legitimate medical purpose and I’m actually kinda glad that I got circumcised as circumcised penises are usually preferred by the ladies. So, there are definitely some clear advantages to being circumcised. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be willing to undergo that pain again for those benefits. It seems like the physical pain explanation would be the obviously best explanation for why I was traumatized by that. I don’t see any other good alternative explanations for that trauma.

but everybody knows that a child’s bones are more supple and pliant than an adult’s; and, besides, you don’t say any bones were even broken. — Todd Martin

Well, it’s more about the sensitivity of the nerves rather than anything to do with bones. There are certain excruciating torture methods that do not require you to cause any bodily damage like water boarding for example. Slowly pealing off a very small portion of one’s skin also does minimal bodily damage but it is extremely painful. Sometimes a particular way of being hit can also be much more painful even if it didn’t correspond to obvious bodily damage. Then there are also strange phenomena like the phantom limb symptom where someone with a missing limb reports experiencing physical pain in the area where the limb used to be. I think this sort of thing really challenges any sort of theory that claims that physical pain always strongly corresponds to bodily damage. In reality, it’s possible that physical pain can sometimes work in very mysterious yet still context independent sorts of ways. It’s sometimes hard to explain what makes something hurt someone with any theory.

If any of my words have cast the shadow of a doubt in your mind about the etiology of your trauma, then let me know, and I will continue to attempt to persuade you; otherwise, I will leave off, and consider my efforts to have been in vain. — Todd Martin

Well, that’s something that I find mildly disappointing about many philosophical conversations. So many times everyone just wants to be the persuader and no one is open to being persuaded themselves on anything. I think that I’m always open to persuaded but I don’t really want to talk to someone that is just interested in promoting their own way of thinking about the world. I want to talk to someone who sees this conversation as an opportunity for 2 people to discover the truth together. That often means considering that one might be wrong at least about something that they are probably far from being an expert in(such as the personal experiences of the person that they are speaking to.)

@TheHedoMinimalist. Here are two excerpts from your speech that seem to me to be inherently contradictory. I will quote and compare them:

I want to talk to someone who sees this conversation as an opportunity for 2 people to discover the truth together. — TheHedoMinimalist

I find any sort of universalism about human nature and the way humans experience things to be highly implausible as I think people just experience the world in vastly different ways. — TheHedoMinimalist

If there is no universal human nature, and no common human experience, how can two different human beings discover any common truth together concerning either their natures or experiences? Indeed, what motivation would two ppl believing that even have, to seek truth together? In that optic, there is only my truth and your truth, and there is nothing to guarantee that they share any resemblance.

...and yet it is obvious, sine multis exempliis meis, that human beings share a common both nature and experience.

Your sentiment, that you want to converse with someone with whom you might discover the truth, smacks more of Socrates as portrayed by Plato than of modern philosophy, which, nurtured on Nietzsche, tends to place separate unbridgeable cultures on a higher pedestal than the universalist old-school philosophy and science. Nietzsche’s separate cultures ultimately became our separate individuals...all unique and peculiarly “creative”, incomparable with anyone else...all great rewards for the ego of the common man suffering under the heavy burden of his obscurity, giving a boost to his flagging self-confidence...

...but there was a cost. As one member of this site recently stated, nothing is truly free, and the cost we pay for choosing culture/individualism over philosophy/science is that there then becomes no intellectual common ground on which to share our experiences.

What reason or motive do you have to be open to my argument that your pain is memorable not because of its pure intensity, but because it was the result of a grown man beating up on a defenseless small child? For as you say, ppl just experience the world in vastly different ways, and that’s that...but then to say you hoped that you and I could discover the truth about it together?? Well, your first premise pretty much puts an end to that, O, Hedomenos, doesn’t it?

Yet I offered evidence from your own words to illustrate my point: that your trauma was due to more than mere intensity of physical pain. You said,

You seem to be listing very mild forms of pain in comparison to my scenario of being beaten by a grown man as a child. — TheHedoMinimalist

What do “grown man” and “child” have to do with intensity of physical pain? By using those terms you prejudice the reader: he imagines a powerful brute having his way with a defenseless weakling, and the effect on the reader is not one of excruciating pain (though that too may be involved), but rather of stronger taking advantage of weaker in order to vent his animus. THAT, O Hedomenos, is the context of the pain you keep denying exists, though you have given it to us in your very words.

As far as your late circumcision goes, you have not focused on that nearly to the extent you have on being bashed on the ground by an overpowering brute. Yet the lateness of it, at 9 years of age, when most boys receive it, like I did, soon after birth, says much. I doubt you would agree with this, but I think any medical procedure done in “the nether regions” of the body on a sentient being must be more traumatic than if performed most anywhere else. Why? Because those parts of the body are most private...

...I had a beautiful 4th-grade teacher. She began having health problems, and the male (of course, in that day) doctor wanted to examine her breasts, to which, out of modesty, she refused; a year later she was dead from breast cancer.

If there is no universal human nature, and no common human experience, how can two different human beings discover any common truth together concerning either their natures or experiences? — Todd Martin

I’m arguing that the common truth to be discovered is the truth of there not being any universal human nature. I believe in objective truth but I don’t believe in universal human nature. I don’t see why the existence of objective truth would entail the existence of universal human nature.

What do “grown man” and “child” have to do with intensity of physical pain? — Todd Martin

Well, adult men are usually stronger than children and children usually have a worse pain tolerance than adults. This isn’t always true but it’s usually true and it might help explain why the experience hurt me more than you think that it should.

Well, your first premise pretty much puts an end to that, O, Hedomenos, doesn’t it? — Todd Martin

Well, it only puts an end to the discussion if you can’t come up with another good reply or counter-argument. You gave me some counter-arguments and I think I gave you a good reply each time. If you can respond to my replies of your counter-arguments well or you can present additional considerations or arguments then I might agree with you. This issue is very complex and there’s always new opportunities for you to make some novel points that I might have not considered. For example, usually when a philosopher tries to argue for the existence of notable universal similarities between human experiences of something specific like pain they will either cite studies in psychology or cognitive science that provides evidence for universal human experience of pain or they will elicit a thought experiment that can better elucidate their intuitions on the matter to their interlocutor.

By using those terms you prejudice the reader: he imagines a powerful brute having his way with a defenseless weakling, and the effect on the reader is not one of excruciating pain (though that too may be involved), but rather of stronger taking advantage of weaker in order to vent his animus. THAT, O Hedomenos, is the context of the pain you keep denying exists, though you have given it to us in your very words. — Todd Martin

Well, I’m afraid that you are reading too much into a few choice of words that I used and you are misinterpreting what I was trying to say. I wasn’t trying to use the words “grown men” and “child” rhetorically or emotionally in any way. I was just pointing out that adult men have more potential to beat up children than a door has to hurt an adult men by accident under most circumstances.

I doubt you would agree with this, but I think any medical procedure done in “the nether regions” of the body on a sentient being must be more traumatic than if performed most anywhere else. Why? Because those parts of the body are most private... — Todd Martin

Well, my parents and doctors have examined my penis on multiple occasions and it seems like your explanation for my trauma implies that I should be just as traumatized by the touching of the penis as I would with circumcision.

@TheHedoMinimalist. How can you believe in the objective truth about anything if you don’t assume it has a common nature? Does a mathematician think some numbers can be added or subtracted or multiplied or divided, etc, but others not? Does a physicist think some bodies fall at 32 ft/sec2 but others don’t? If you are to be objective as a “scientist of man”, how else can you proceed unless you assume he has a common nature? Otherwise you’re studying, not types of things, but only separate individual entities that have nothing in common. Does that seem like science to you?

I’m arguing that the common truth to be discovered is the truth of there not being any universal human nature. I believe in objective truth but I don’t believe in universal human nature. I don’t see why the existence of objective truth would entail the existence of universal human nature. — TheHedoMinimalist

But, Honey, you have given no proof of your argument other than your own subjective (not objective) experience. You say human experience is necessarily subjective, but have given no objective proof that this is so, and you dodge my question of why two ppl would want to seek the truth about anything together when, as you assert, not as an argument, but as an axiom, that there is nothing they have in common other than their separate unique individual experiences...which might, or might not (as ours hasn’t come together) mesh, depending on chance.

You seem to me to have this attitude: “This is my experience as a human being; I would like for someone to validate it. That would make me feel as though I am not alone in the world”...but all those who may have sympathized with you are mute, and the only one who has stuck with you is me, I, who profoundly disagree with you.

And I tell you now: I will stick with you to the bitter (or sweetest) end. As long as you respond to me, so will I to you, and I will never give up in attempting to show you the weaknesses of your arguments...in case that somehow benefit you, and your responses somehow benefit me.

How can you believe in the objective truth about anything if you don’t assume it has a common nature? — Todd Martin

What do you mean by common nature in this context? I thought we were understanding common nature in discussion as just a short way of saying common human nature regarding how we experience physical pain. You seem to be talking about common mathematical nature and common physical nature now so I’m a bit confused. I’m not rejecting the viewpoint that there are some kinds of common natures. Rather, I’m just stating that there could be very radical differences in how human beings experience pain.

But, Honey, you have given no proof of your argument other than your own subjective (not objective) experience. — Todd Martin

I have made an additional argument earlier actually. I talked about the phantom limb syndrome and how it is difficult to explain why some individuals experience pain that feels like physical pain and happens to be localized in a limb that isn’t really there because it was amputated from that person. This phenomenon is certainly not universal among all amputees. So, why do some amputees have it or others don’t? Another challenge that could be posed by the viewpoint that people have a pretty common experience of physical pain is the phenomenon of “blue balls”. This is where a man reports experiencing testicular pain after having his sexual or masturbatory session interrupted and the pain gets alleviated once the man finally gets to orgasm. Though, I’ve actually had blue balls where the pain got worse after I orgasmed so it does seem to feel differently for me than it feels for other men. The thing about blue balls though is that there isn’t a good physiological explanation for it. Some skeptics of blue balls say that blue balls is just disappointment and it is an emotional pain actually. I think a better explanation for blue balls is that it is a form of culturally engrained physical pain. It is physical pain because it is localized in the testes as men who have experienced it have reported it and it has the same sort of felt quality as physical pain. Nonetheless, I think being taught a narrative that blue balls exists can actually make the physical pain exist through the placebo effect. Though, the pain can still be considered context independent as it could be experienced regardless if you are with a sexual partner that stopped the sexual activity or you had your masturbation session interrupted.

Lastly, I want to point out that it’s just difficult to talk about the intensity of pain without feeling that pain itself. The intensity of a given pain is subjective but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t objective facts about our subjective experience of pain. We just don’t have any reliable way of accessing those objective facts and testimonial evidence seems to be the strongest type of evidence here.

As long as you respond to me, so will I to you, and I will never give up in attempting to show you the weaknesses of your arguments...in case that somehow benefit you, and your responses somehow benefit me. — Todd Martin

That sounds awesome to me. I rarely get to have really long and epic discussions on this forum.

@TheHedoMinimalist. You recently stated,

It matters not only how hard the thing that hits you is but also how hard it is trying to hit you. — TheHedoMinimalist

You then say,

doors aren’t trying to hurt you and so they aren’t going to be as efficient at doing so. — TheHedoMinimalist

There are two elements involved here: the harmful capacity of a physical object, like a door (and you admit that solid wood is more formidable, in a mere physical sense, than even a “big muscular guy”), and the hurtful intent of a violent person, and your explanation as to why the latter is to be feared more than the former is because his intention leads to greater “efficiency” at hurting you, and you experience greater pain because, since he intends to hurt you, he is more efficient than a motiveless door would be at inflicting pain.

But this, I assume, doesn’t apply to your circumcisor, for he, I presume, had no intention of hurting you. You said, of your circumcision, that it was as traumatic as your beating, yet the two men had inherently different motives, so how do you reconcile your theory of intentionally inflicted pain with that? Or do you think your circumcisor was sadistic?

Since you have admitted the element of intention into our discussion about the trauma of pain, let me give you some examples of that sort of trauma that involved no physical pain whatsoever...yet long-lasting trauma...

You and your long-time best friend, one to whom you have cleaved throughout many years enjoying together the joys and adversities of two lives lived inseparably, get caught up in a heated argument, over something probably forgettable and trivial, and he takes a swing at you and misses: had he connected, you might have suffered a black eye or broken nose, etc; since he didn’t, is the pain to your soul any less because of that? Will you just forget that your best friend tried to clock you, because he caused you no intense physical pain?

Your wife, whom you love and adore, serves you your customary evening beverage, and at the first taste you detect something different and wrong, so you surreptitiously save it and take it to a chemistry lab, only to have it come back positive for antifreeze. Are you heartened that you did not drink down the draught? Of course you are! But is the trauma any less because you didn’t?