Pain, Pleasure, Praise and Protest

Are you my Body?

Our brains are constantly receiving signals. Whether they originate from within or without, they ultimately come thru our senses, this beautiful antenna called the body.

When the body sends the brain a pleasure signal, it says “do that again”, inducing a positive autocorrelation, a destabilizing “change-more” signal. Likewise when the body sends a pain signal, it says “don’t do that again”, a negative autocorrelation, a stabilizing “don’t-change” signal. Delayed gratification induces higher order layers of this, for example, you may do physical exercise which results in short term pain but long term pleasure. Likewise addictions may give short term pleasure but long term pain.

This pattern of adjusting behaviour via pain and pleasure extends beyond the body. In relationships we send signals, with praise indicating the desire for behaviour to be repeated, and protest indicating that the behaviour should be reduced.

“Do it again”
”Stop that”

This analogy is not coincidental. In fact, baby’s brain first learns how to interpret its own pain and pleasure signals from its parents. Crying broadcasts pain, giggling broadcasts pleasure. How the adults handle this signal programs baby to interpret these signals accordingly. If crying is punished too harshly too often, baby may learn that its needs are not important and may suppress its own desires and pains.

Of course, the body is not so easily overridden. The neocortex is new. The brainstem and amygdala are ancient. Suppressed desires have ways of routing around the mind’s constraints, but these backroom deals inevitably come at a cost. As the mind tries to explain it’s own confused behaviour in an internally consistent way, it twists itself into hypocrisies and logical fallacies, linguistically extruding contradictions into personality complexes.

"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires" - William Blake

These backroom deals often take the shape of addictions. The body has to sell its desires to the mind, but it cannot tell the whole truth, so it shrouds the objective in euphemisms and half-truths. These swallowed lies then harden and block the light of consciousness, forming a shadow.

Organizational Coherence

By characterizing pleasure and pain in this way, we can extend this analysis to more than 2 bodies. Families, organizations, even nation states can be characterized by their coherence of pain and pleasure signals, which is a measure for how aligned the interests of the group and the individuals are. When team members are afraid to speak about the problems they see, the pain signals are less likely to propagate to someone who could do something about it. Likewise the successes of the business should be shared with the various body parts.

We try not to show our enemies pain, because in combat, your enemy’s pain is your pleasure. You can even measure the friendliness of someone by how they respond to your pleasure and pain signals. An enemy will mourn your successes and rejoice in your failures. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

So how to improve coherence? Each individual contributes their personal signal patterns to the organization. Pain signals can be misinterpreted and even weaponized, both within and between individuals. Complaining transfers pain, but if the recipient has no recourse to offer, either practical or emotional, such a transfer can be perceived as hostile. Likewise if internal competition makes individual success dangerous, then pleasure may be avoided or hidden for fear of subsequent pain.

But families multiply via pleasure loops! Love is a circle, and success has a million fathers! It feels good to feel good. So let us cast off these masks, this senseless scar tissue! Let us restore our Divine inheritance of sensation!

For every thing that Lives must Feel!

The Smile

William Blake

There is a Smile of Love

And there is a Smile of Deceit

And there is a Smile of Smiles

In which these two Smiles meet

And there is a Frown of Hate

And there is a Frown of disdain

And there is a Frown of Frowns

Which you strive to forget in vain

For it sticks in the Hearts deep Core

And it sticks in the deep Back bone

And no Smile that ever was smild

But only one Smile alone

That betwixt the Cradle & Grave

It only once Smild can be

But when it once is Smild

Theres an end to all Misery