The neutral point of wellbeing is often associated with a state of not much going on in terms of sensory stimulus, e.g. the Parfit âmuzak and potatoesâ vision of lives barely worth living. This seems natural, because it matches up zero (valenced) sensory input with zero net wellbeing. But there is actually no reason for these two to exactly coincide, itâs allowed for the mere lack of stimulation to feel mildly pleasant or unpleasant.
If the mere lack of stimulation feels pleasant, then the neutral point of wellbeing would correspond to what common sense might recognise as experiencing mild suffering, such as sitting on an uncomfortable chair but otherwise having all your needs attended to (and not sitting for long enough to become bored). And vice versa if the lack of stimulation feels unpleasant by default.
For me, recognising these two types of neutralness arenât coupled together pushes in the direction of thinking of the neutral point of wellbeing as mild suffering, rather than âtrue neutralnessâ or mild pleasure. If I imagine a situation that is maximally neutral, like walking around a bland city not thinking of anything in particular, that feels comfortably inside life-worth-living territory (at least to do for a short time). If I try to imagine a situation that is borderline not worth experiencing, I find it hard to do without including some fairly bad suffering. Sitting in an aeroplane is the thing that springs to mind for this, but that is actively very uncomfortable.
Equating stimulation-neutralness and wellbeing-neutralness leads to being quick to declare lives as net negative, helped along by the fact that the extremes of suffering seem more intense than the extremes of pleasure.
You look at a gazelle and say âWell, it spends 80% of its time just wandering around grazing on grass (0 wellbeing points), 10% starving, being chased by predators, or being diseased in some way (-1000 wellbeing points), and 10% doing whatever gazelles do for fun (+500 wellbeing points)â, so itâs life is net negative overall. But it could be that the large amount of time animals spend doing fairly lowkey activities is quite positive, and I find this to be more intuitive than the other way around (where neutral activities are slightly negative).
When searching just now I came across this quick take which argues for the exact opposite position in the Parfit example:
A life of just muzak and potatoes isnât even close to being worth living. ⊠Parfitâs general idea that a life that is barely worth living might be one with no pains and only very minor pleasures seems reasonable enough, but he should have realised that boredom and loneliness are severe pains in themselves.
Itâs surprising how peopleâs intuitions differ on this! Although, I could salvage agreement with @JackM by saying that heâs supposing the boredom and loneliness are noticeably unpleasant and so this isnât a good example of a neutral state.
I think the intuition behind the muzak-and-potatoes example is thrown off by supposing you experience exactly the same things for your whole life, even imagining much more exciting music and tastier food as your only experience feels grotesque in a different way. But imagining being in a room with muzak and potatoes for a couple of hours seems fine.
The neutral point of wellbeing is often associated with a state of not much going on in terms of sensory stimulus, e.g. the Parfit âmuzak and potatoesâ vision of lives barely worth living. This seems natural, because it matches up zero (valenced) sensory input with zero net wellbeing. But there is actually no reason for these two to exactly coincide, itâs allowed for the mere lack of stimulation to feel mildly pleasant or unpleasant.
If the mere lack of stimulation feels pleasant, then the neutral point of wellbeing would correspond to what common sense might recognise as experiencing mild suffering, such as sitting on an uncomfortable chair but otherwise having all your needs attended to (and not sitting for long enough to become bored). And vice versa if the lack of stimulation feels unpleasant by default.
For me, recognising these two types of neutralness arenât coupled together pushes in the direction of thinking of the neutral point of wellbeing as mild suffering, rather than âtrue neutralnessâ or mild pleasure. If I imagine a situation that is maximally neutral, like walking around a bland city not thinking of anything in particular, that feels comfortably inside life-worth-living territory (at least to do for a short time). If I try to imagine a situation that is borderline not worth experiencing, I find it hard to do without including some fairly bad suffering. Sitting in an aeroplane is the thing that springs to mind for this, but that is actively very uncomfortable.
Equating stimulation-neutralness and wellbeing-neutralness leads to being quick to declare lives as net negative, helped along by the fact that the extremes of suffering seem more intense than the extremes of pleasure.
You look at a gazelle and say âWell, it spends 80% of its time just wandering around grazing on grass (0 wellbeing points), 10% starving, being chased by predators, or being diseased in some way (-1000 wellbeing points), and 10% doing whatever gazelles do for fun (+500 wellbeing points)â, so itâs life is net negative overall. But it could be that the large amount of time animals spend doing fairly lowkey activities is quite positive, and I find this to be more intuitive than the other way around (where neutral activities are slightly negative).
When searching just now I came across this quick take which argues for the exact opposite position in the Parfit example:
Itâs surprising how peopleâs intuitions differ on this! Although, I could salvage agreement with @JackM by saying that heâs supposing the boredom and loneliness are noticeably unpleasant and so this isnât a good example of a neutral state.
I think the intuition behind the muzak-and-potatoes example is thrown off by supposing you experience exactly the same things for your whole life, even imagining much more exciting music and tastier food as your only experience feels grotesque in a different way. But imagining being in a room with muzak and potatoes for a couple of hours seems fine.