He found himself wanting them before ever getting any (so it’s not that he got some, found that he enjoyed getting them, and wanted them for the sake of that enjoyment).
He found out they existed by getting one.
Regardless, this feels like not quite the thing. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy getting them. It’s that he was trying to learn French, and now suddenly instead he was trying to earn achievements in “learning French”. No matter how much he liked those achievements, they got in the way of actually learning French.
With that in mind, I think the answer to “is food a lotus” would be: for some people, in some contexts, yes.
Like, if I go to a networking event intending to meet people, but instead I spend all my time gorging myself at the buffet.
I had a goal, and the food meant that instead of working towards my goal, now I’m doing something that won’t help it at all. If food is sufficiently lotus-like for me, I might need to completely avoid networking events with buffets. This is true even if I actually really enjoy food, and endorse that enjoyment in general.
Whoops, you’re right about how he found out; my apologies. Still, my reading of the OP is that the craving Valentine felt for earning achievements wasn’t primarily a result of the actual pleasure he got when he did it.
I agree that the definition of “lotus” I proposed is not quite the thing in the sense that it doesn’t quite track what we care about, and said as much in my last paragraph; I think “thing we want out of proportion to its benefits” is pretty close to being the thing, but whether that makes it a better definition to use isn’t obvious to me.
(If I understand your proposal right, it’s maybe different again: something is a “lotus” if we want it, and there’s something closely related that would be beneficial or pleasurable for us, but the two don’t match. That feels to me like it’s again not quite the thing—something could be perilously want-hijacking, and worth “noticing the taste of”, without that sort of proximity to useful wants.)
My food example doesn’t feel to me like the food is particularly close to the networking. Which is to say, I agree with your last sentence.
(I don’t feel like I’m trying to propose a definition here, just gesture vaguely at a cluster and some features of it that seem relevant. Similarly, I don’t have particular feelings about your proposed definition. Most of my comment might have been better directed as a reply to someone else.)
He found out they existed by getting one.
Regardless, this feels like not quite the thing. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy getting them. It’s that he was trying to learn French, and now suddenly instead he was trying to earn achievements in “learning French”. No matter how much he liked those achievements, they got in the way of actually learning French.
With that in mind, I think the answer to “is food a lotus” would be: for some people, in some contexts, yes.
Like, if I go to a networking event intending to meet people, but instead I spend all my time gorging myself at the buffet.
I had a goal, and the food meant that instead of working towards my goal, now I’m doing something that won’t help it at all. If food is sufficiently lotus-like for me, I might need to completely avoid networking events with buffets. This is true even if I actually really enjoy food, and endorse that enjoyment in general.
Whoops, you’re right about how he found out; my apologies. Still, my reading of the OP is that the craving Valentine felt for earning achievements wasn’t primarily a result of the actual pleasure he got when he did it.
I agree that the definition of “lotus” I proposed is not quite the thing in the sense that it doesn’t quite track what we care about, and said as much in my last paragraph; I think “thing we want out of proportion to its benefits” is pretty close to being the thing, but whether that makes it a better definition to use isn’t obvious to me.
(If I understand your proposal right, it’s maybe different again: something is a “lotus” if we want it, and there’s something closely related that would be beneficial or pleasurable for us, but the two don’t match. That feels to me like it’s again not quite the thing—something could be perilously want-hijacking, and worth “noticing the taste of”, without that sort of proximity to useful wants.)
My food example doesn’t feel to me like the food is particularly close to the networking. Which is to say, I agree with your last sentence.
(I don’t feel like I’m trying to propose a definition here, just gesture vaguely at a cluster and some features of it that seem relevant. Similarly, I don’t have particular feelings about your proposed definition. Most of my comment might have been better directed as a reply to someone else.)