Satisfaction can be taken two ways though, the literal satisfaction of making love; and the satisfaction of falling in love or having a companion to grow old with. The only thing missing in this is the question of why that person "satisfies us". Is it their ability to complete our sentences? keep us company? or is it a subconcsious type of completion from a chemical perspective...like the whole opposites attract ordeal.

When kit said a "biological neccesity", i didn't take it as a neccesity of life (like having to fall in love to live a complete life), but rather, the satisfaction of physical love to our physical health and mental health.

Absolutely! and I mean, I haven't read anything about socrates or from plato other than the books we've read in this class; so my knowledge of what socrates has and hasn't experienced is pretty limited. But I don't believe that humans should judge experiences that they have not had. I am a big fan of the "don't knock it 'til you've rocked it" motto. And yes, I think that being blinded by love would have come into consideration when talking about moral responses. If he had ever experienced love in that sort of manner, Socrates would have mentioned it as another aspect of decision making because it is such an obstacle.

The harm is that on the outside, it may seem liket he product is in good taste and the customer's money is being well spent; but really the salesperson is just clouding our vision and making is so the pro's stick out like sore thumb against the con's.

This brings us back to the discussion about whether or not it is the thought that counts when doing a moral deed, or whether the action is what really matters. A sales rep could think that the customer could benefit from the item and thus they don't feel bad using their sales tactics to make the purchase happen. But in reality, does the customer really need it? In the long run, will their money be well spent?

In Bisci we are doing a field study where we had to go shopping and before buying two items, we had to literally stop and make a list of the yes"s and no"s to our purchases. What were we saying yes to when buying this product and what we were saying no to. For example, I went to buy a brownie. By buying the brownie I was saying no to my health, my budget, and the environment..while saying yes to my cravings and desires. Some would say the dollar fifty was well spent because I was satisfied and i fixed my craving, but in the long term, I hurt the environment, my wallet, and my health. So was it worth it? Did I need it? NO.

So, in relation to the marketing topic, I think that being manipulative, even in the best sense of the customer can allude us to products that are not really focused toward the "good", and by creating this illusion, the sales representatives are actually working against the "good".

So relevent! I literally was just watching The Butterfly Effect the other day with Ashton Kutcher where the moral of the story is: forget the past, because your problems are in the here and now.
We could talk about memory for hours on end, it is SUCH an interesting topic! And I agree there are pro's and con's, but personally I see more con's. The past is the past and usually when we dwell on it we either stress over the bad stuff and wish it never happened, or we dwell over wanting to relive the good times. And the worst of all are the memories where we wish we could do something different. Since we are in the present we might as well stay here, and thus I don't see any upside to having a perfect memory or the ability to travel back.

As far as our readings are concerned, Socrates teaches us how to respond on the spot and I think that he would find it unacceptable to be able to go back and revisit our memories. He also talks about the good in a progressive sense, and usually the "good" thing to do is what is moral and allows us to move forward with our lives. And the ability to travel back and change fate, or just dwell on the past is not helping us and is even selfish in a sense and I do not think he would approve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dVQfzjDS4

Socrates does not look into the assumption of Theuth being "Blinded by love" because I don't think socrates understands the concept. Socrates relates almost everything to the right action of humans and the correct moral response to ideas and events. Socrates, thus far in our readings, hasn't come across a point in his own life where he is so into something that he is blinded as to it's meaning or source of interpretation. The only thing that I have seen socrates be in love with is his ability to learn, he even says in the Phaedrus "I am a lover of learning; the countryside and the trees will not instruct me." yet even though he says he is a 'lover' of learning, he is always breaking down and analyzing every step of his learning process. I don't believe Socrates will ever understand what it's like to be "blinded by the love" of something; and therefore he doesn't take that into consideration when he is analyzing Theuth.

wow mike I never even thought of sex as an occupation while writing my post. I brought up sex as an emotional loving activity and one of self-harm, but you bring up a good point that sex nowadays is used very frequently for sheer profit. And in this form you originally think of it as a "bad" act and an unhealthy use of pleasure, however it's two sided because the success and proceeds are part of one's survival which is in turn a "good" act because it is a means of maintaining lifestyle. I agree that this , however, does not even encompass emotion but it simply a business transaction and it's mind boggling that such an emotional, hormonal activity can be brushed aside as a simple business transaction with no emotional attachment.

And if there is no emotional aspect of sex, do you even need to justify it?

i agree, I was only talking about sex as self-inflicting though. Sex is usually wonderful ,especially with someone you love... but i was talking about when girls go on sex sprees and use sex is unhealthy ways when they are feeling down. For example, in certain cases, girls will use sex to give up responsibility.. when they have alot going on or are depressed about something, they use sex to give power to someone else. In this sense, a pleasure activity goes completely upside down. But is it the meaning behind that lead up to the activity, say the thought process, that makes it bad or good? or is it the way that it makes us feel afterwards?

liek in class wiht the lava metaphor. is it the reasons for putting the other person or ourselves in the lava that makes it a bad or good decision? or is it how it makes us feel afterwards (e.i. guilty)?

Fantastic podcast! Very engaging, you did a great job of summarizing and hitting all the major points ☺
To discuss you’re last question about understanding justice and it’s relation to understanding pleasure, there are two sides to everything. Just because you know understand the meaning of justice, that does not mean that you understand “pleasure” as a whole, because there are so many aspects of every category of understanding. Also, every category has some kid of overlap, which also adds to the complexity of it all. As Sam mentioned, once you feel that you understand justice and attempt to relate that to pleasure, you are faced with whether or not it is good or bad pleasure, and whether or not you can feel justified in such pleasure. This goes quite similarly with the superiority debate. Whether or not intellectuals should have more superiority. It is not how much they know , but how they use the knowledge and whether or not they will use it for good.

I have struggled with the same life path issues that you both have brought up. I came to college as a makeshift fashion major and have always planned on going to college and moving straight to new york to start climbing the corporate ladder in the high fashion world. I have planned on marrying young and eventually having a bunch of kids. My main focus though has been on success and I have always set high goals for myself when it comes to making money and the lifestyle I plan on living...which has directly affected my decisions as to jobs and classes and extra curriculars.

However, in my bisci class we have been talking about conditioning and how to recondition ourselves. We were asked to pick one belief ( i chose my belief that i had to be successful to live a happy life/ the life i have always dreamt of) and then write a paper about why it is that the belief is comforting to hold into, how continuing to hold on to this belief may restrict my freedom and how my life would change if i shed this belief.

Refelecting on all of this made me realize that my dream of making a lot of money and being successful has stunted my freedom of exploring other aspects of life, trying new things, and making use of the obscure opportunities we have here at penn state. I have had such a set path that I haven't even given thought to the possibility of doing something different.

If I don't re-evaluate my situation I may never give my self a chance to find another interest; similar to how jordan went from marketing to philosophy

i agree with you that a lawyers obligation is to fight for their client and give them 100%, which i suppose leads us outside of the courtroom. At some point we need to take into consideration the fact that the defendant needs to understand his/her actions and the moral injustice they have commited. They need to understand more than just "murder is wrong"; they need to understand why. And in this aspect, teaching-persuasion needs to somehow be worked into our justice system so that we can understand what is just and unjust, and have a universal definition of so.