http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/04/pleasure_unit_t.html
From the Dilbert Blog
I believe this may be the meaning of life
And yes I did read this when I should have been working!
I don’t believe in free will. That’s partly because it’s indefinable in any sensible way, i.e. you have to assume that the rules of cause and effect are optional for your brain chemistry. Second, it doesn’t do a good job of predicting behaviour. No one would choose to be a drug addict or a paedophile, just to pick two examples.
I prefer my own theory. I call it the Pleasure Unit Theory. It does a much better job describing behaviour, and it goes like this.
Pleasure Unit Theory: People organize their lives to get their minimum required units of pleasure. While individuals vary in terms of how many units of pleasure they need, everyone is striving to reach their personal minimum.
I just saw a picture of Eve Longoria on a magazine cover. She has nearly zero body fat and a perfectly toned body. If you believe in free will, you might be puzzled as to why celebrities can be so thin when regular people can’t come close. BOCTAOE.
Your first thought might be that celebrities have more to gain by being thin. For them it’s a job, and they can afford to have private trainers and put in the gym hours. That’s part of it. But I guarantee that Eve Longoria also eats fewer calories than you. How does she get the will power?
If you subscribe to the popular superstition called free will, you probably think she has unusually strong will power when it comes to resisting food. I look at it this way: She already exceeds her minimum level of pleasure with fame, money, and dating a ripped young athlete.
When Eve looks at a piece of pie, she knows it might increase her total happiness for that day by only 1%, at the price of losing all the other things that bring her pleasure. By contrast, when you look at that same piece of pie, eating it might be the only good thing that happens to you all day. You NEED the pie to get close to your minimum pleasure units.
My theory explains all the following:
1. Why poor people are fatter than rich people.
2. Why people with crappy lives do drugs that are sure to be destructive in the long run.
3. Why you are reading this blog instead of working.
