No joy without pain?

[malefide]

Is it necessary to feel pain in order to feel joy? If one purposefully eliminates pain, does this also eliminate the distinction of joy, or can joy be distinguished from neutrality and therefore could in theory exist without pain existing?

[Rowan]

It could be that understanding pain gives us a greater comprehension of pleasure and it certainly is true that many people don’t strictly differentiate between pain and enjoyment – masochism and sadism are all too common. However, I’m loathed to say one is necessary for the other. No one would seriously suggest that if you torture a human being from the moment s/he is born to the moment s/he dies then the absence of pleasure in that human’s life means s/he will have no comprehension of the pain being inflicted. It seems, then, equally absurd to suggest that feeling pain is a necessary condition for feeling joy.

[azelismia]

Is it necessary to feel pain in order to feel joy? If one purposefully eliminates pain, does this also eliminate the distinction of joy, or can joy be distinguished from neutrality and therefore could in theory exist without pain existing?


Speaking as a person who has endured mind boggling amounts of pain in the last month, I have to say it hasn't increased my joy levels one tiny bit (other than getting out of work for a month and a half...) ;) In fact, I think I'd be quite capable of being joyous with zero pain whatsoever.

[sriv]

The lowest low comes after the highest high and vice-versa. In order to experience joy to the fullest, one must have experienced pain. It is an automated balance the mind sets. Assuming your definition of joy is the great happiness/pleasure. An better antonym for joy would be depression, but pain works a little.

[pensivemuse7]

I do not think pain is necessary to feel joy. But pain can help an individual sense the presence of joy easier in oneself, maybe. The problem with pain is that it has the tendency to continue to drag you down to the point where you could be numb, and therefore not feel anything.

I think you can eliminate any feeling, like pain, through perception and just how you think. If you let something be painful, then it will be. The intensity of feelings are mental and the ability to suppress or let go of certain feelings are dependent on how you perceive the situation or if you want to feel a certain way.

[Jakalwarrior]

I can say that it is impossible to feel joy all of the time. You run out of the chemicals you need to sustain it and dive into depression. Thats what happens to X and coke users.

[mkay]

I don't think pain is necessary to feel joy.

Personally, I've never been depressed, but I'm fully able to feel joy. Each person's wiring is different. Mine lets me feel happy most of the time. Even with what people see as problems, I usually see as blips or challenges.

[Linn]

I think joy can definitely exist without pain. Even more, too much pain can destroy the ability to feel genuine joy. Having experienced quite a lot of pain I really miss those moments of utter and radiant joy I had before. The mere awareness that such pain is possible casts a shadow.

[Hdier]

I think that it is necessary to know and understand pain in order to truly appreciate joy. Without knowing pain, or feeling it recently enough, I believe that you begin to get used to the chemicals (or whatever) that the brain releases that we call joy. (if you don't work well with analogies, don't continue reading this post; it's one giant analogy)

I have recently realized that I did not fully appreciate my house in AZ. It was a two story house with hight ceilings (all ceilings were high in that area because we lived in a desert), and was huge. Or, at least, that's how I think of it now, when I'm living in an apartment with my dad. When I was living in the house and did not know anything else, it seemed normal. Now, it seems a luxury (this is why, by the way, 'kids' can never truly know 'how good they have it' unless they [we?] experience it for themselves [ourselves? I'm 15: you decide if I'm included or not]).

Similarly, without knowing pain you can not truly understand and obtain joy from the feeling you get when the brain triggers the specific reaction causing the emotion. Sure, you feel it, but you don't understand how good it is.

However, an excess of pain does not, in my opinion, help you feel joy more, simply cause you to cling to it more.

[malefide]

Sure, you feel it, but you don't understand how good it is.



So the quality or degree of the "goodness" of the joy is relative to the pain? Isn't simply "understanding how good it is" an intellectual function instead of an emotional one?

[Phrixos]

I feel that without pain we could not perceive something as "joyous". Because Pain is the reference model for joy, and joy is the reference model for pain.

By that I mean, when something painful happens we cite something joyful to illustrate the extent of our pain. How the hell do you do that without one or the other?

[mkay]

Well let's say you'd never experienced joy before. You'd feel pain even if you'd never had joy to "measure" by. But maybe you're wired differently.

[Ytterbium]

Ofcourse it differs. If you sit in front of the computer at work longing for a Pepsi. Is the same thing as longing for water after a long walk. We humans get spoilt all the time so we have to go through "pain" to enjoy more things. The same goes for digital equipment whereas it can't tell a difference from 0 or 1. If the system continuously gets one value, so it needs to get refreshed so it don't differ to greatly from the nominal.
I have a car which lacks power stearing and only have four gears. I bought a newer one which have 5 gears and power stearing. Which was a huge increase in comfort. While others would roll their eyes in their SUVs with automatics. My gain would be a pain for someone else.

[Latte]

For you to release "happy-chemicals" with a trigger of viewing your life as "good", or the moment as "good", you need to have relative experiences to compare them to so that they fall on the "good" side of the scale.

There is other triggers for pleasant feelings though (which do not work with a scale-system), that I'm guessing are usually hard to distinguish from the kind triggered above for those who experience both. Especially seeing as the 1st usually accompanies the 2nd kind.

[mkay]

I wonder whether INTJs (and maybe other rationalists) who see the need to feel pain to experience joy are wired so that they can't feel one without the other. For instance, maybe other people are wired so they can "experience" pain or joy through others' experiences and use that as a "measure" and some INTJs can't. ... It would make sense given that many INTJs say they're somehow removed or distanced from other people's feelings in general.

[vaguely dissatisfied]

Since it's a neurotransmitter thing, I would say that you don't need one to experience the other.

However, the cognitive recognition of the 'good' things in your life is usually enhanced by deprivation.

[Hdier]

So the quality or degree of the "goodness" of the joy is relative to the pain? Isn't simply "understanding how good it is" an intellectual function instead of an emotional one?

No; it is simply that I believe that we do not perceive joy as being 'good' without pain, and I believe that perceiving joy as 'good' is an essential part of it being joy. For example, I take water for granted. Therefore, I always assume that I have water and do not truly understand how good it is to have water.

However, if I were to be without the ability to have water for a few days, I would look forward to having water and drinking it would be a happy experience because it would be something that I was not able to have before.


Similarly, if someone were to have never experienced pain in their entire lives then they, I believe, would see a lack of pain as a constant, an expectation, and joy would cease to be as, well, joyful.



However, I would also like to say that the intellectual part can, I believe, influence the emotional part because emotions are the brain analyzing situations and telling the body to release certain chemicals, etc.

[Metafire]

There is joy without pain but there are really effects that increase joy after sad or painful periods. It has to do with differences, realtivity and expectations. If your situation is always the same you won't feel much anyways, because there is no difference you could distinguish. But if your situation somehow gets better you feel joy. And if your situation gets worse you feel sadness or mental pain / depression. If you would be in the comfortable situation that your life gets better and better you would be happy most of the time. But once you lose your wealth or status or whatever and fall back to the level where you started, you would feel really bad. So everything is relative.

Also expectations are quite important. If you expect something terrible to happen at a specific time, you will be quite happy if it doesn't really happen. Contrary you will feel disappointed if you expect something good and it fails to happen to you. So your personal history and your expectations shape the way you react emotionally to different situations. Maybe the levels of different hormons in the body and the brain are just indicatos of what a person mentally expects to happen: something joyful, something terrible or a critical situation or simply nothing. The conscious mind can influence expectations to a certain degree but not absolutely. So you won't be able to feel extremely happy just because none of your imaginary worst case scenarios become reality.

[rwyatt365]

...so I guess a core question is; Is the endorphin release triggered by an absolute state, or a relative one. Put another way - is there a threshold of positive input that will trigger good feelings (that endorphin release) which is absolute, or is it relative to some other pre-existing negative state.

Thought experiment; if I'm craving a PB&J sandwich and I'm in a neutral emotional state, and I receive that PB&J sandwich, will I experience joy? Probably. Now, if my goldfish has just died, and I have no thoughts of a PB&J sandwich but someone offers me one anyway, will I experience joy? Probably not.

Then one could surmise that joy is relative and therefore one must experience pain (in some way) in order to experience joy. A frame of reference must be present.

[malefide]

No; it is simply that I believe that we do not perceive joy as being 'good' without pain, and I believe that perceiving joy as 'good' is an essential part of it being joy.

So if perceiving joy as "good" makes up an essential part of its "joyness", and good can only be used as a relative term (relative to something less or more good), then you'd have to have something other than joy (pain or neutrality) in order for joy to be essentially joy.

[Hdier]

Close, but not exactly what I mean. You need a sharp contrast (pain) to perceive it as 'good', while a-blunter?-contrast will cause you to perceive it as 'better'. Since we are using 'joy' instead of 'happy' or a softer word like that, I do not believe joy can be perceived, or, at the very lease, perceived as joy, unless you have that sharp contrast to compare it to.

Also, I agree with Metafire.

[malefide]

Close, but not exactly what I mean. You need a sharp contrast (pain) to perceive it as 'good', while a-blunter?-contrast will cause you to perceive it as 'better'. Since we are using 'joy' instead of 'happy' or a softer word like that, I do not believe joy can be perceived, or, at the very lease, perceived as joy, unless you have that sharp contrast to compare it to.

Also, I agree with Metafire.

Okay, I think I see what you're saying. You're making a clear distinction between levels of pain/discomfort...

[vkut79]

Is it necessary to feel pain in order to feel joy? If one purposefully eliminates pain, does this also eliminate the distinction of joy, or can joy be distinguished from neutrality and therefore could in theory exist without pain existing?

I think one sensible way to answer this question is to analyze cases where people actually do experience the absence of pain or joy. This happens with certain drugs and certain mental disorders like bipolar disorder. In both cases, a prolonged happiness is followed by a prolonged sadness (has to do with neurotransmitter activity). So with the kind of happiness/sadness involved there, clearly you cannot have one without the other, they are like opposing ends of a relative scale. This may not apply to all sorts of happiness/sadness.

Also, looking at your own life experience is not very reliable. You would need more objective information to answer this reliably, like with scientific research on brain chemistry or something.

[malefide]

Also, looking at your own life experience is not very reliable. You would need more objective information to answer this reliably, like with scientific research on brain chemistry or something.

I'm really interested in finding some documentation on this type of thing. My dad does neuroscientific biochemical work sometimes but nothing specifically dealing with the chemical reality of emotions... Now I'm increasingly curious. :P

[mkay]

No; it is simply that I believe that we do not perceive joy as being 'good' without pain, and I believe that perceiving joy as 'good' is an essential part of it being joy. For example, I take water for granted. Therefore, I always assume that I have water and do not truly understand how good it is to have water.

However, if I were to be without the ability to have water for a few days, I would look forward to having water and drinking it would be a happy experience because it would be something that I was not able to have before.

I can't speak for others, but I don't generally take things for granted, so perhaps I appreciate things more relatively and therefore have more happiness / joy in my life. As an example, this is something I posted a year ago on another site:

It’s hard for me to understand why people take so many things for granted. We turn on the tap and water comes out. We open the fridge and there’s food in it. If there’s no food, we go to the store and get more. Millions and millions of people around the world don’t have these basic things. Not on a soapbox. Or maybe I am. But it seems like there are so many whiny-ass people in the world who don’t realize what they have. They have all the basics, PLUS they have CHOICES. Sometimes, the injustice in the world takes me aback. The fact that I can sit here, hooked up to the Internet, be well-off enough, and well-nourished enough, to think coherent thoughts about what I want out of life is a luxury many people in the world would never dream of. I post this in gratitude.

I don't pretend to see through another person's eyes or experiences. I can only speak through my own appreciation for life, which brings me a lot of joy, despite having never been depressed. I'm generally a happy person. I also empathize a lot with people because that's how I'm wired. For the past couple of decades, I've worked in newspapers and edited or read one story after another of terrible things happening to people. Maybe that's made me appreciate life more than usual. The other thing is, I'm a first generation immigrant -- I've never experienced terrible times because my family immigrated when I was an infant, but I certainly understand what sacrifice means, even if I've never had to go through much of it. Those experiences have shaped my perspective throughout life, and I think perspective largely determines happiness/joy/sadness, which is why various people can go through the same traumatic event(s) and come out differently -- some with flying colors, some sinking to the bottom and whatever in between.