hedonism

WARN ALL WOMEN !

2008-04-21T03:17:00.000-07:00

Bottled water in your car.....very dangerous!

This is how Sheryl Crow got breast cancer. She was on the Ellen show and said this same exact thing. This has been identified as the most
common cause of the high levels in breast cancer, especially in Australia .
A friend whose mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The Doctor told her: women should not drink bottled water that has been left in a car.

The doctor said that the heat and the plastic of the bottle have certain chemicals that can lead to breast cancer. So please be careful and do
not drink bottled water that has been left in a car, and, pass this on to all the women in your life. This information is the kind we need to know
and be aware and just might save us ! The heat causes toxins from the plastic to leak into the water and they have found these toxins in breast
tissue. Use a stainless steel Canteen or a glass bottle when you can !

In addition, you should not reuse a plastic water bottle more than once.

Let everyone that has a wife/girlfriend, sister or daughter know please.

Kits for Cooking Beer

2008-04-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

What is the Beer Machine?

The Beer Machine is a self-contained, single-step brewer that makes brewing your own fresh premium naturally made beer as easy as brewing coffee. The idea is simple: after the simple one time assembly, you can make any of dozens of international or domestic styled beers in just seven to ten days. Included with your Beer Machine, you'll get your first 28- 12oz. servings of heavenly brew that you can tap direct from The Beer Machine. The convenient size easily fits in your fridge in the same "footprint" space of a six-pack.

It has been almost 20 years since we introduced The Beer Machine and today, The Beer Machine is available in many countries around the world where it has become the undisputed easiest and simplist way to make high quality, great tasting, naturally made micro brewery style and quality beers quickly and conveniently, for literally "pennies per serving".

No, you're not dreaming....... there are two models available.
more..http://beermachine.com/

Cooking beer

2008-04-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

Spent Grain Bread
By Joe Thompson

1 cup warm water
4 Tbsp sugar
2 cups spent grain
1 pkg dry bakers yeast
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 to 3 1/2 cups bread flour

Combine sugar and yeast with warm water. Add salt, oil, spent grain, and 1 cup of the flour. Mix well. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough.

Knead well, cover, and let rise for several hours (until doubled). Punch down and shape into two loaves. Place on a greased baking sheet, cover, and let rise until doubled.

Bake at 425 degrees F. for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees F. and bake for 10 more minutes or until nicely browned.

Paul Manting to Head Up Sales & Marketing at ICON Yachts

2008-04-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

Paul Manting to Head Up Sales & Marketing at ICON Yachts
— As the first ICON 62m hulls arrive at ICON Yachts' freshly refurbished facility in Harlingen in The Netherlands for fitting out, another new arrival is set to head up the Sales & Marketing activities. Paul Manting, whose impressive track record includes running Feadship's South of France office, is already briefing top yacht brokers on the advantages that the new ICON 62m offers their clients - 'a custom superyacht on an optimized platform.'

SPERM

2008-04-09T05:38:00.000-07:00

A spermatozoon or spermatozoan (pl. spermatozoa), from the ancient Greek σπέρμα (seed) and ζῷον (living being) and more commonly known as a sperm cell, is the haploid cell that is the male gamete. It joins an ovum to form a zygote. A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo. Sperm cells contribute half of the genetic information to the diploid offspring. In mammals, the sex of the offspring is determined by the sperm cells: a spermatozoon bearing a Y chromosome will lead to a male (XY) offspring, while one bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female (XX) offspring (the ovum always provides an X chromosome). Sperm cells were first observed by a student of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 1677.

ha-hedonisam

2008-04-08T07:22:00.001-07:00

Music

2008-04-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

Free MP3 music downloads - Free Music Downloads - MP3 Downloads ...

Download.com Music is your source for legal and free MP3 downloads. Download MP3s from thousands of artists.
music.download.com

Yacht Charter in Croatia

2008-04-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

Croatia is a country built for sailing. The sheer length of coastline (over three and a half thousand miles of it) for this average sized European country is staggering! Not only does this mean that it is easier to find a secluded anchorage but also means that marinas are always reasonably close at hand. The rocky coastline means the water is ever so clear. Add to this a sunny climate and the freshest and tastiest seafood and lamb and you have the makings of a great holiday. One place very good is http://www.adriatic-fun.com

Sex

2008-04-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

his article is about biological sex. For alternate uses, such as sexual intercourse, see Sex (disambiguation).

Sex in animals involves the fusion of a sperm and an egg cell.

In biology, sex is the process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into male and female reproductive roles. Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells (called gametes) to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents. Gametes can be identical in form and function, but in many cases an asymmetry has evolved such that two types of gametes exist: male gametes are small and are optimized to transport their genetic information, while female gametes are large and carry the nutrients necessary for the development of the child organism.

An organism's sex is defined by the gametes it produces: males produce male gametes (sperm) while females produce female gametes (egg cells); organisms which produce both male and female gametes are hermaphrodites. Frequently physical differences are associated with the different sexes of an organism; these sexual dimorphisms can reflect the different reproductive pressures the sexes experience. In some cases female organisms also have the role of carrying offspring through the first part of development, a process called gestation.

Biological sex is distinct from gender. Although these words are commonly used interchangeably, gender refers to an individual's self-conception or social conception as being male or female.

What is Love?

2008-04-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

ove is more than emotions, and it is much more than a good feeling. But our society has taken what God has said about love, sex and intimacy and changed it into simply emotions and feelings. God describes love in great detail in the Bible, especially in the Book of First Corinthians, chapter 13. So that you catch the full weight of God's definition of love, let me present verses four through seven (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) to you this way. How much would it meet your needs if a person loved you as God says we should be loved:

if this person responded to you with patience, kindness, and was not envious of you?
if this person was not boastful or prideful?
how about if this person wasn't rude toward you or self-seeking or easily angered?
what if this person didn't keep a record of your wrongs?
how about if they refused to be deceitful, but always were truthful with you?
what if this person protected you, trusted you, always hoped for your good, and persevered through conflicts with you?

This is how God defines the love He wants us to experience in relationships. You'll notice that this kind of love is "other-person" focused. It is giving, rather than self-seeking. And there's the problem. Who can live up to this?

For us to experience this kind of love in relationships we need to first experience God's love for us. You can't consistently demonstrate this kind of love toward someone if you've never experienced being loved in this way. God, who knows you, who knows everything about you, loves you perfectly.

God tells us through the ancient prophet, Jeremiah, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; and I have drawn you unto Myself" (Jeremiah 31:3). So God's love for you is never going to change.

God loved us so much that He allowed for Jesus Christ to be crucified (an ancient form of execution) for our sins so that we might be made clean. We read in the Bible, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). When we turn to God and accept His forgiveness, then we begin to experience His love.

God tells us, "If we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Not only does God forgive our sins, but He forgets them and cleanses us.

God continues to love us no matter what. Often, relationships end when something in them is altered, such as a damaging accident or the loss of financial position. But God's love is not based on our physical appearance or who or what we are.

As you can see, God's view of love is totally different from what society tells us love is. Can you imagine a relationship with this kind of love? God simply tells us that His forgiveness and love is ours for the asking. It is His gift to us. But if we refuse the gift, we are the ones who cut ourselves off from finding true fulfillment, true intimacy and true purpose in life.

What is Intimacy?

2008-04-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Today, the word intimacy has taken on sexual connotations. But it is much more than that. It includes all the different dimensions of our lives -- yes, the physical, but also the social, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects as well. Intimacy really means total life sharing. And haven't we all had the desire at one time or another for closeness, for oneness, for sharing our life with someone totally?

Marshall Hodge wrote a book called Your Fear of Love. In it he says, "We long for moments of expressions of love, closeness and tenderness, but frequently, at the critical point, we often draw back. We are afraid of closeness. We are afraid of love." Later in the same book Hodge states, "The closer you come to somebody, the greater potential there is for pain." It is the fear of pain that often drives us away from finding true intimacy.

I was giving a series of lectures at a university in southern Illinois. After one of the meetings, a woman came up to me and said, "I have to talk to you about my boyfriend problems." We sat down, and she began telling me her troubles. After a few moments, she made this statement: "I am now taking steps never to get hurt again." I said to her, "In other words, you are taking steps never to love again." She had thought I misunderstood, so she continued. "No, that's not what I am saying. I just don't want to get hurt anymore. I don't want pain in my life." I said, "That's right, you don't want love in your life." You see, there is no such thing as "painless love." The closer we come to somebody, the greater potential there is for pain.

I would estimate that you (and around 100 percent of the population) would say you have been hurt in a relationship before. The question is, how do you handle that hurt? In order to camouflage the pain, a lot of us give people what I call the "double-sign." We say to a person, "Look, I want you to come closer to me. I want to love and be loved . . . but wait a minute, I've been hurt before. No, I don't want to talk about these subjects. I don't want to hear those things." We build walls around our hearts to protect us from anyone on the outside getting in to hurt us. But that same wall which keeps people out, keeps us stuck inside. The result? Loneliness sets in and true intimacy and love become impossible.

Sex and intmacy

2008-04-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

What does it take to experience real intimacy with someone? What is love? What is intimacy?
What is love - intimacy

Dr. Henry Brandt, in the Collegiate Challenge magazine, said that there is a syndrome, a pattern, when couples come to him. They say, "At first, sex was exciting. Then I started feeling funny about myself, and then I started feeling funny about my partner. We argued and fought and finally we broke up. Now we are enemies."

This syndrome is what I call the morning-after syndrome. We wake up and find that intimacy is not really there. The sexual relationship does not satisfy us anymore, and what we end up with is not what we really wanted in the first place. All you have is two self-centered people seeking self-satisfaction. The elements of genuine love and intimacy cannot be obtained "instantly," and you find yourself in an unbalanced state, searching for harmony.

Each of us has five significant parts in our lives. We have the physical, the emotional, the mental, the social, and the spiritual. All five of these parts are designed to work together in harmony. In our search for intimacy we want the solution today, or yesterday. One of our problems is that we want "instant" gratification. When the need for intimacy in a relationship is not met, we look for an "instant" solution. Where do we look? Physical, mental, social, emotional or spiritual? It's the physical. It is easier to be physically intimate with someone than to be intimate in any of the other four areas. You can become physically intimate with a person of the opposite sex in an hour, or half-hour -- it just depends upon the urge! But you soon discover that sex may only be a temporary relief for a superficial desire. There is a much deeper need that is still unmet.

What do you do when the thrill wears off and the more you have sex, the less you like it? We rationalize it by saying, "We are in love. No, I mean really in love." But we still find ourselves feeling guilty and unsatisfied. On campuses all across America I see men and women searching for intimacy, going from one relationship to another hoping, "This time will be it. This time I am going to find a relationship that will last."

I believe that what we really want is not sex. What we really want is intimacy.

Madonna, Sharon Stone join forces

2008-04-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

Madonna and Sharon Stone will be co-hosting Harvey Weinstein's annual Cinema Against AIDS gala at Cannes this year!

Seal is scheduled to perform at the gala. That means everyone will be treated to the yummy mummy Heidi Klum, too!

That's not all for her Madgesty at Cannes! The night before the gala, Madge's documentary I Am Because We Are will be shown at the film festival. Madonna produced, a guy named Nathan Rissman directed. The film profiles children orphaned by AIDS in Malwai.

Guy has been so event shy these days. If Madge needs a date, we're available!

Chocolade cacao/noisette/vanille. 350 gr

2008-04-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

La pâte à tartiner « la chocolade » est le résultat d’une association entre la noisette et le cacao. Nous utilisons du cacao non dégraissé, plus fort en arôme, et moins texturé que le dégraissé, lui gardant ainsi ses qualités nutritionnelles. Ce produit contient du lait.

Ingrédients :
Purée de noisette 28 %
Sucre de canne roux 28 %
Lait entier en poudre 18 %
Huile vierge de palme non hydrogénée
Cacao non dégraissé
Huile de tournesol
Beurre de cacao
Vanille
Sel non raffiné

A utiliser sur des tartines ou dans la pâtisserie, particulièrement délicieux sur les crêpes ou gaufres chaudes.

Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream

2008-04-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

My sister's husband has a passion for Nutella. When Ferrero put out a 40th-anniversary Nutella jar* of woolly mammoth** proportions, Christian bought one and actually spooned his way through it. Not in one sitting, admittedly, but still.

I love my brother-in-law dearly, so when he and my sister came to dinner a few weeks ago, I thought I'd treat them to Nutella ice cream for dessert. I considered going the classic ice cream route, starting with a custard base to which I'd add Nutella, but I was feeling under the weather and this was more work than I wanted to tackle.

Instead, I used a much easier, much more straightforward formula: equal weights of Nutella and unsweetened evaporated milk (lait concentré non sucré), combined and churned into the creamiest, most indulgent concoction ever to emerge from my ice cream machine.

This first attempt was wildly successful (and I do mean "I would marry you if I hadn't already married your sister" successful) yet two problems remained: 1- although the French version of Nutella contains no transfats, it still leaves much to be desired on the nutritional front, and 2- the one-to-one ratio resulted in an ice cream that was, in my opinion, sweeter than strictly necessary.

It took little brainjuice to figure out a solution: replace the Nutella with an all-natural, organic equivalent, and use less of it.

My organic store stocks several brands and variaties of chocolate hazelnut spread, involving different proportions of hazelnuts and chocolate. After studying the labels for a while, I set my heart on Jean Hervé's Chocolade, for three reasons: I'm already addicted to his stone-ground nut butters, a portion of the company's sales is donated to a charity that builds schools in Madagascar, and the guy has a ponytail.

As the obligatory spoon test revealed***, this Not-ella is less sweet than its world-renowned cousin, and less eerily smooth, too. It would be unfair to describe the texture as grainy -- it is not -- but the tongue senses and aknowledges that real hazelnuts have given their lives for the cause.

And I'm happy to report that, when enrolled in this ice cream project of mine, La Chocolade performed to the complete satisfaction of all who had a chance to taste it before the tub mysteriously emptied. The ice cream was most often paired with the best sablés in the galaxy (I'm serious): Poilâne's punition cookies, which now come in an adorable spoon shape to serve with coffee, or, for a limited time only and until the Saint-Valentin crap finally boils over, in a heart shape.

~~~

* I believe this collector's item weighed in at 5 kilos (~11 pounds).
** Did you know woolly mammoths had a flap of hairy skin over their anus to keep out the cold? Can you think of a more endearing feature? or a more appropriate topic to discuss with your V-Day date?
*** The spoon test should be conducted as follows: take spoonful, place on tongue, close mouth, draw spoon out, close eyes, swish, chew, swallow.

Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream

- 350 grams (= 12 1/3 ounces = 1 1/2 cups = 360 ml) store-bought chocolate hazelnut spread, preferably all-natural and organic
- 410 grams (= 14 1/2 ounces = 1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon = 380 ml) unsweetened evaporated milk (a.k.a. unsweetened condensed milk or lait concentré non sucré; I used reduced fat)

Makes about 750 ml (3/4 quart).

Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Combine the chocolate hazelnut spread and the evaporated milk in a medium mixing bowl, and stir with a whisk until they become one, voluptuous and smooth. Depending on the texture of the spread you're using, this may take a few minutes; don't get discouraged. (To speed things up, you may use a blender/stick blender/stand mixer, or gently heat the evaporated milk beforehand.)

Cover and refrigerate until well chilled. Whisk again and churn in your ice cream maker.

If you don't have an ice cream maker, you can still make this recipe on a day when you're home most of the time. Prepare the mixture in the morning and chill for two hours. Pour into a freezer-safe container and place in the freezer. Every hour or so, remove the container from the freezer, draw the sides in with a fork (the ice cream will set on the sides first), stir vigorously, and return to the freezer. Your ice cream will be ready by dinnertime.

The only problem with that method -- besides requiring a little elbow grease -- is that the ice cream becomes quite solid the next day. Just take it out of the freezer for 15 minutes to soften before you scoop some out.

On Greens, and How to Keep Them Fresh

2008-04-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've come across many versions of this tip over the years. Keeping one's greens fresh and happy seems to be the culinary equivalent of keeping one's skin young: it's a losing battle, but everyone hopes to find the magic technique.

Wash, don't wash (we're talking about greens again now; we'll address personal hygiene another time), wrap in plastic, cloth, or a paper bag, keep on the counter or refrigerate, and even this one: put the herbs upright in a glass of water and place on a shelf or in the door of your fridge. (That gave my French-sized refrigerator a good laugh.)

I've experimented with those ideas to varying degrees of success -- mostly on the lower end of the scale -- and after throwing out enough wilted herbs to start a compost heap, I've finally found the M.O. that works for me, so I thought I'd share.

When I get back from the greenmarket on Saturday mornings, I put my purchases away, sit down for a cup of coffee, then get to work.

Every week I get one bunch of leafy herbs -- flat-leaf parsley, chervil, cilantro -- and one paper bag's worth of small salad leaves, which I prefer over a head of lettuce. These days it's a mâche fest (pictured above), but I'll switch to arugula, baby spinach, or mesclun (mixed greens) when they're in season again.

I start with the herbs: I remove any elastic or string tying them, and rinse them in a shallow bath of cold water in the bowl of my salad spinner. I drain the herbs, rinse them again if the water was a little brown, and spin them as dry as I can. I line a plate with a paper towel, arrange the herbs on top, and leave them out for 15 minutes, or until dry.

I line the bottom of a medium plastic container with a fresh paper towel and, using kitchen scissors, snip the top of the herbs (tender stems + whole leaves) into the container, discarding the stems, or freezing them for soups and stews. I close the lid of the container, and place it in the fridge.

Then, over the next three or four days depending on the type of herb, all I have to do is open the container, take a handful of ready-to-use herbs, and add them to salads or sprinkle them on dishes. Bliss, I tell you.

While the herbs are laid out to dry on a plate (two paragraphs ago), I turn to the salad leaves. If it's mâche I'm dealing with, I take three or four tiny bouquets at a time, cut off the roots, and place the leaves in the empty salad spinner. For other kinds of greens, I simply sort through them to make sure none of the leaves are wilted or browned.

I then rinse the greens in just enough cold water to cover, drain, repeat (mâche typically requires three baths, the others just two), spin them dry dry dry, and leave them in the uncovered salad spinner to dry for about 20 minutes, shifting them around every now and then.

I line a large container with a paper towel, and arrange the salad leaves over it -- they should not be packed too tight. I top them with another paper towel, close the container, and put it away in the refrigerator, ready to be used in a pinch over the next three or four days.

The power of paper towels is that they absorb the moisture, preventing the greens from turning limp and moldy. And the power of prepping the entire bunch in one go is, of course, that you don't have to do it again every single time, thus saving some of your energy, and a bit of the planet's water resources.

And while we're on the subject of environment, I should note that once all the herbs or salad leaves have been eaten, the paper towels can be left out to dry -- they'll be just a little damp -- and reused for whatever purpose paper towels usually serve in your kitchen. by clotilde

And this is my technique. What's yours?

Friendship

2008-03-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humans. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them. Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating on a consistent basis:

the tendency to desire what is best for the other,
sympathy and empathy,
honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart
mutual understanding.

Friends in Nazareth, Israel. Friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life.

In a comparison of personal relationships, friendship is considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association can be thought of as spanning across the same continuum. The study of friendship is included in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and zoology. Various theories of friendship have been proposed, among which are social psychology, social exchange theory, equity theory, relational dialectics, and attachment styles. See Interpersonal relationships

Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian poem that is among the earliest known literary works in history, chronicles in great depth the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades. The Abrahamic faiths have the story of David and Jonathan. Friendship played an important role in German Romanticism. A good example for this is Schiller's Die Bürgschaft. The Christian Gospels state that Jesus Christ declared, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."(John 15:13).

In philosophy, Aristotle is known for his discussion (in the Nicomachean Ethics) of philia, which is usually (somewhat misleadingly) translated as "friendship," and certainly includes friendship, though is a much broader concept.

Cultural variations: (stub-section) A group of friends consists of two or more people who are in a mutually pleasing relationship engendering a sentiment of camaraderie, exclusivity, and mutual trust. There are varying degrees of "closeness" between friends. Hence, some people choose to differentiate and categorize friendships based on this sentiment.

sensuality

2008-03-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

It is that vital, intrinsic, pulse-beating passion within us, our feeling natures, sensuality, that gives us creativity and a sense of joy. Through our feelings we experience our purpose and the special, ecstatic moments in our lives. It is through our feelings that our lives are given meaning and worth. It is our romancing one another in loving, ecstatic ways that helps us to discover that we are ALL sensual beings.

What everyone really wants:

Intimacy
Sex
Love
Nature
Friends
Pleasure

Modern beliefs

2008-03-31T05:56:00.000-07:00

Modern day hedonists strive firstly, as their predecessors, for pleasure. But also, hedonists feel that people should be equal, and that the way to achieve that is through allowing much more personal freedom. Hedonists, in the words of an organization known as Hedonist International, "want joyful togetherness, anarchy, epicurean ideas, multifaceted joy, sensuality, diversion, friendship, justice, tolerance, freedom, sexual freedom, sustainability, peace, free access to information, the arts, a cosmopolitan existence, and a world without borders or discrimination, and everything else that is wonderful but not a reality today. "(Hedonist Manifesto)

Basic concepts

2008-03-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

The basic idea behind hedonistic thought is that pleasure is the only thing that is good for a person. This is often used as a justification for evaluating actions in terms of how much pleasure and how little pain* (i.e. suffering) they produce. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize this total pleasure (pleasure minus pain). The nineteenth-century British philosophers John Stuart Mill
and Jeremy Bentham defended the ethical theory of Utilitarianism, according to which we should perform whichever action is best for everyone. Conjoining hedonism, as a view as to what is good for people, to utilitarianism has the result that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Though consistent in their pursuit of happiness, Bentham and Mill’s versions of hedonism differ. There are two somewhat basic schools of thought on hedonism:

One school, grouped around Jeremy Bentham, defends a quantitative approach. Bentham believed that the value of a pleasure could be quantitatively understood. Essentially, he believed the value of a pleasure to be its intensity multiplied by its duration - so it was not just the number of pleasures, but their intensity and how long they lasted that must be taken into account.
Other proponents, like John Stuart Mill argue a qualitative approach. Mill believed that there can be different levels of pleasure - higher quality pleasure is better than lower quality pleasure. Mill also argues that simpler beings (he often references pigs) have an easier access to the simpler pleasures; since they do not see other aspects of life, they can simply indulge in their pleasures. The more elaborate beings tend to spend more thought on other matters and hence lessen the time for simple pleasure. It is therefore more difficult for them to indulge in such "simple pleasures" in the same manner.

Critics of the quantitative approach, however, argue that there are several problems with it. They assert that generally, "pleasures" do not necessarily share common traits, besides the fact that they can be seen as "pleasurable." Critics of the qualitative approach argue that whether one pleasure is higher than another depends on factors other than how pleasurable it is. For example, the pleasure of sadism is a more base pleasure because it is morally unpalatable, and not because it is lacking in pleasure.

While some maintain that there is no standard for what constitutes pleasurable activities (for example, those with an interest in sadomasochism), most contemporary hedonists believe that pleasure and pain are easily distinguished and pursue the former.

In the medical sciences, the inability to derive pleasure from experiences that are typically considered pleasurable is referred to as anhedonia.

Philosophy

2008-03-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Pleasure may also be defined, at least in some

contexts, as being the reduction or absence of pain. Epicurus and his followers defined pleasure as the absence of pain.
The 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer understood pleasure as a negative sensation, as it negates the usual existential condition, that of suffering.
Utilitarianism and New Hedonism philosophies both attempt to increase to the maximum the amount of pleasure and minimize the amount of pain.

HEDONISM

2008-03-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

Pleasure can be brought about in different ways, depending on how every individual senses the feeling of pleasure.

People commonly feel this phenomenon through exercise, sexuality, music,

usage of drugs, writing, accomplishment, recognition, service, and any other imaginable activity; even pain (known by its medical terminology masochism). It also refers to "enjoyment" related to certain physical, sensual, emotional or mental experience.

Neurology

The Pleasure center is the set of brain structures, predominantly the nucleus accumbens, theorized to produce great pleasure when stimulated electrically. Some references state that the septum pellucidium is generally considered to be the pleasure center while others mention the hypothalamus when referring to pleasure center for intracranial stimulation.. Certain chemicals are known to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. These include dopamine and various endorphins.

hedonism

2008-03-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Pleasure can be brought about in different ways, depending on how every individual senses the feeling of pleasure.

People commonly feel this phenomenon through exercise, sexuality, music, usage of drugs, writing, accomplishment, recognition, service, and any other imaginable activity; even pain (known by its medical terminology masochism). It also refers to "enjoyment" related to certain physical, sensual, emotional or mental experience.

Philosophy

Pleasure may also be defined, at least in some contexts, as being the reduction or absence of pain. Epicurus and his followers defined pleasure as the absence of pain.

The 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer understood pleasure as a negative sensation, as it negates the usual existential condition, that of suffering.

Utilitarianism and New Hedonism philosophies both attempt to increase to the maximum the amount of pleasure and minimize the amount of pain.

Neurology

The Pleasure center is the set of brain structures, predominantly the nucleus accumbens, theorized to produce great pleasure when stimulated electrically. Some references state that the septum pellucidium is generally considered to be the pleasure center [1] while others mention the hypothalamus when referring to pleasure center for intracranial stimulation.[2]. Certain chemicals are known to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. These include dopamine and various endorphins.