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Why Scientists Are Battling Over Pleasure

Responding to a New York Times article, Why Scientists Are Battling Over Pleasure:

Although some can argue that art does more for pleasure, it seems to make more sense to think of art appreciation as a pure pleasure that invokes less, as opposed to those that also involve other senses such as hearing or touch. The experience of art, although it can include tactile and auditory aspects, is often the ideation of objects and concepts, minimally as an aesthetic and emotional experience.

In the same way that intelligence can be thought of as g, or general mental ability, it does not mean that one no longer studies what makes for great specific ability, or the influence and effect of learning.

Although pleasure might be processed the same way, that does not mean one should stop there and be done with it. It seems to make more sense, assuming one accepts that pleasure is the same, to find the ways that such things are different. On an experiential level, it seems that the various pleasures are different, in that they seem to engage additional pathways.

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