Pain & Pleasure

Nature has put Man under 2 gods: Pain & Pleasure.

We often talk about marginal costs, marginal benefits, but there are people who will skeptical that this costs-benefits thingy is going to apply to everything. I dont exactly know whats going on in that brain of theirs, but lemme rephrase it this way.

Benefits = Pleasure Costs = Pain

Simple as that. And more often that not, everyone of us have the number one goal of minimising the reading on our own Pain-o-meter, and maximise the reading on our Pleasur-o-meter. Oh, I can hear some your disagreement simmering down there. That cannot be, you say, there are people who actively want to seek Pain, and there are lots of people who do not place self-interest as No.1 goal. Aha, but I say, those people that seek pain actively, do so because pain gives themselves greater pleasure than the pain. Those people that always put others first before themselves because to them, helping others be happy, means that they gain pleasure as well.
Wiol ono. For you.
Sounds oxymoronic? Noo.. this is because pain is quite easily quantified. At least relative to happiness. Why? Because everyone likes to complain, grumble, groan, and say 'ouch'. Or at least express their discomfort in one way or another. But however, happiness is not something that is easily quantified/measured, because it is not a material good, and is very difficult to measure in terms of a material good. Happiness is something elusive, very difficult to describe, except that for the fact that it..just make you feel 'up'. Or contented. Whatsoever. So pain can be something that induce pleasure, but pleasure can never induce pain. Getting mixed up? Never mind, some day you will understand.
It is funny how the behaviour of love is close to the behaviour of insanity.
Lets put this another way. Pleasure is equivalent to incentives, and pain is a disincentives. Everybody responds to both. If I dangle the prospect of a free lunch in front you, you will jump at it. Thats a incentive. If I take out a knife, and threaten, you will jump too. Thats an disincentive. A combination of incentives and disincentives are the movers of people. It is what motivates people.
Primum Movens
Perhaps, by selfishly going for our own interests, we can acheive the greater good. Paradoxically, in many cases, men setting with the goal in mind to achieve greater good, end up in failure. To see why selfishness might bring the greater good, note that the interests of 6 billion people cannot be the same. These interests will include the extremes, and as people actively seek self interests, while noting that others are also pursuing self-interest, the net result is the middle ground-the equilibrium. This is the best possible outcome.
人不为己，天诛地灭
Others say, this is rubbish, and tote out the Prisoner's Dilemma as evidence. But i think I can solve the dilemma already. First of all, I dont think we can maximise pleasure and minimise pain at the same time. So at anyone time, you choose either. And you will choose so that your total utility, which is (pleasure - pain) is as large as possible. Given this, now go back and think on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Convince yourself it is the best outcome possible. There is no better.

Incidentally, you know the you go to BlogSkins.com, and all those designs have dummy entries written in, that goes 'Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet..' Did you know it was taken out out of a passage about pain and pleasure? The original was written by Cicero, and titled "About the Extremes of Good and Evil'

Here is the part of the original text.

…neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet,
consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut
labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam,
quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid
ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea
voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum
fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

The translation:

Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of
itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in
which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial
example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to
obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man
who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who
avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

We are all slaves to Passion.
Radix malorum est Cupiditas, primum movens.