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What is happiness? We live for it, right?
An analysis of what this concept means.

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What is happiness? We live for it, right?

Lex
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Posted 03/17/08 - 01:47 PM: Subject: What is happiness? We live for it, right?	#1
This is rather long, so if you are interested please bear with me. I am not trying to flood anyone with nonsense, there is simply a lot to say. Humans live in order to attain something. It is not reasonable to assume that we exist simply for the sake of unending proliferation of the species: there must be some kind of visible or obscure goal that we need to achieve. That is relatively intuitive, because otherwise human existence is akin to bacterial life. And I don't think I am wrong in assuming that this would not suffice to satisfy a human being. When saying that your life has meaning, you define goals. Most important in life is then action: action to attain these goals. Action also should be consistent with a certain well-defined sense of beliefs, because otherwise any sort of action will be acceptable, including random murder, inaction, etc. That would bring about chaos and the demise of society as we know it. Knowing that, we have to come to the realization that humans are a social entity. We must live in groups in order to attain the ability to educate ourselves and understand the world around us and technologically advance our society. This serves to enable us to protect human rights and lives. A perfect society would be precisely that: a group dedicated to the protection and satisfaction of itself, without sacrificing the interests of any individual element. In a society, a human being usually ends up growing up in a family, receiving an education, attaining some degree of wealth and status (varying depending on circumstances, ability and motivation) and dying. The cycle repeats. Humans rarely bother to define why they exist specifically. Working towards wealth, we end up dying rather abruptly cutting off any necessity to define a purpose beyond wealth and power. For the sake of this discussion, I will disregard any theist approaches to solving the question. There is no real logical proof to religious theories, and the many contradictions would make the argument less logic-oriented. Also, as (I suppose) a logical positivist, I will ask that idioms, abstractions and intangibles not be thrown around recklessly: world like love, emotion, justice, tradition, etc. have no argumentative power until defined and proven. To continue: many people, lacking a concrete definition of purpose or happiness, choose to state that LOVE is the basis of happiness. The love that the majority idolizes is the EMOTIONAL connection between TWO individuals, on a different level than is usually displayed in the interaction with other members of society, including family. Love is, unfortunately, highly abstract, and once again there is no proof. We know for certain that there is a physiological attraction (due to hormones and innate behavioral patterns) and is among humans expressed in a similar way to other animals: physical proximity, intercourse, child rearing. It is rather ridiculous (strictly logically) to assume that among the nearly 7 billion humans today, there is an ideal partner for every individual. In fact, nothing short of magic would imply that there SHOULD be somebody out there destined for each individual. The fact that the majority of humans nevertheless "falls in love" and marries, we have to assume that a) they do not attain true love, or b) it is possible to love a variety of people. If a), then there is no evidence whatsoever that love is anything but a hopeful and glorified fraud, because nobody has really experienced the feeling. If b), then love does not seem to be quite so "divine" in nature. In fact, I wonder why people think that there is anything other than a physiological stimulus attracting the opposite sexes. After all, why would I, an individual, seek specifically the companionship of another individual similar to myself? Are they not also seeking the same "divine" feeling which I, bereft of any divinity myself, can give them? I think that there is no evidence at all for the romanticized concept of love. So what could happiness, a concept worthy of being a humanity's ultimate objective, be defined as? I think that there is at least one certainty. If you assume that human life is meaningful (which everyone has to do in the first place, because otherwise we are condemning any sort of definition as pointless), you have to understand that HYPOCRISY is the greatest "evil" (thing to be avoided at cost) imaginable. You cannot say that another person, even if completely alien to you, deserves any less of anything than you. The moment you say that, you have to accept the fact that it is perfectly fine for that person to assume the same thing. In this case, individuals have no responsibility whatsoever to their fellow humans. Murder, theft, or chaos are completely acceptable, much like the jungle laws of strength. It is necessary to adopt a sort of Kantian categorical imperative approach and understand that this is a necessary condition of human coexistence. What I did is simply filtered out that which CANNOT possibly be defined as happiness. We know that a lone individual cannot be happy, moreover he will die and the only outcome of his life will be his having sustained himself throughout its duration: not a "worthy" nor satisfying goal. We must therefore have other humans to interact with for happiness to be possible. However, we must value the interests of every other person over our own and ACT in order to preserve the rights and lives of those we live in, regardless of relationship to them. The problem with that definition is that it is impossible in today's society. Individuals can hardly be described as caring. Even though the notable few will go to great lengths to protect their family and friends, or to serve THEIR community, they will conveniently ignore injustice that is out of their line of sight (I suppose this might be one of the points of argument, and am prepared to debate this statement, but it is too much to prove it now). However, absurdly, a society of my envisioned "perfect individuals" would be vicarious at best. If everyone cares for everyone else's interest and nobody cares for their own, we risk creating a society much like Anthem's (Ayn Rand) post-apocalyptic world order: a purposeless machine where everyone works but does not even have a sense of identity and nobody seems to benefit, only to exist. If you take a batch of "perfect individuals", put them on a cliff, and tell them: :one of you must die, but everybody else can live, after one person jumps off", there would be a case of mass suicide where each individual attempts to jump off as fast as he/she can in order to avoid the deaths of his/her friends. On a positive note: I don't think the grotesque case I mentioned has to the necessary outcome. People who work together will hardly face situations where they must sacrifice members in order to continue their existence. The downside: this is purely idyllic and seems completely inapplicable to our degraded society. Even in a society of saints, it would not work with complete certainty. Conclusion: happiness is impossible in our current society, which is simply a selfish but terminally futile cycle of purposeless life and death. Happiness is at least hypothetically possible if humans somehow learn the INTRINSIC values of CARING for others, though defining it any further is beyond my modest analytical ability at this point. What do you think?

loveofsophia
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Posted 03/17/08 - 02:34 PM:	#2
Lex wrote: This is rather long, so if you are interested please bear with me. I am not trying to flood anyone with nonsense, there is simply a lot to say. Humans live in order to attain something. It is not reasonable to assume that we exist simply for the sake of unending proliferation of the species: there must be some kind of visible or obscure goal that we need to achieve. That is relatively intuitive, because otherwise human existence is akin to bacterial life. And I don't think I am wrong in assuming that this would not suffice to satisfy a human being. I have to say, given we are a multi-celled mammalian organism, it is hard for me to just agree with your assumptions and intuitions that humans are somehow above the biological realities of all other life (i.e. propagation of the species). If humans do not reproduce, they cease to exist, period. Morality, politics, economics, etc., all revolve around this simple reality, continuation of the species. Implicit in this reality (life or death) is the need for us to have goals directed toward (and largely emotionally, biologically, informed} by the necessity to engage in activities that keep alive this fantastically complex organism called the human. We are the descendants of those that stayed alive (despite all the obstacles) and philosophy seems closely connected to the simple (and biologically advantageous) tendency of the human to attempt to understand the world and our place in it (what we can know and not know, what we should do, etc.). That is all I have to say at the moment (time). Edited by Paul on 03/23/08 - 07:08 PM. Reason: incorrect quoting
_____________________ It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

Lex
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Posted 03/17/08 - 03:43 PM:	#3
[quote=loveofsophia]Implicit in this reality (life or death) is the need for us to have goals directed toward (and largely emotionally, biologically, informed} by the necessity to engage in activities that keep alive this fantastically complex organism called the human.[/b] This is abstract. Why is it implicit, and what exactly are the implications of that? Also what were you addressing in particular? Are you saying that there is no happiness? Or that happiness is the perpetuation of life through a complex cycle? I understand that there is no evidence that a human is by design anything more than a common animal. I never claimed to assume that. What I am saying is that as a sentient being I HAVE to assume that there is a distinguishing characteristic to us as intelligent beings. We certainly are unique among animals: we do more complex things than regular animals, and our actions do not seem to be intrinsically survival-oriented. The fact that we in fact dominate this planet is a by-product of our intelligence. As to why I HAVE to assume that I am better (yes better) than a frog: otherwise my life loses any sort of possibility of meaning that I have not grasped yet. What I already grasped is boring enough to justify my not existing. Obviously, it is possible that there is nothing available for humans other than the mundane cycle, however in that case it does not matter if you are satisfied or disturbed, rational or insane, rich or poor, Einstein or a frog: you die, everything you worked for dies. Pointless. This means that I have to assume purpose, even if I cannot see it, simply in order to continue to function. And please DO NOT confuse this with religious hopefulness, it is bare necessity.

loveofsophia
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Posted 03/18/08 - 12:45 PM:	#4
loveofsophia wrote: Implicit in this reality (life or death) is the need for us to have goals directed toward (and largely emotionally, biologically, informed} by the necessity to engage in activities that keep alive this fantastically complex organism called the human. Lex wrote: This is abstract. Why is it implicit, and what exactly are the implications of that? What I meant to say is that we must have talents and tendencies toward perpetuating the species or we wouldn't exist. This implies that we are far more similar to bacteria than different, for likewise their continued existence is dependent upon their variant abilities to perpetuate their species. Also what were you addressing in particular? Are you saying that there is no happiness? Or that happiness is the perpetuation of life through a complex cycle? Happiness is closely correlated to living well. I audited a pysch class on emotion and essentially the happier someone is the longer they live and is strongly correlated to four things, generosity, strong social connections, being at least middle class (being any richer has no effect on happiness), and having a life narrative or emotional narrative (self understanding). These are all connect up with successfully perpetuating your genes. People can be happy without these things, but it is more difficult. I understand that there is no evidence that a human is by design anything more than a common animal. I never claimed to assume that. What I am saying is that as a sentient being I HAVE to assume that there is a distinguishing characteristic to us as intelligent beings. We certainly are unique among animals: we do more complex things than regular animals, and our actions do not seem to be intrinsically survival-oriented. The fact that we in fact dominate this planet is a by-product of our intelligence. As to why I HAVE to assume that I am better (yes better) than a frog: otherwise my life loses any sort of possibility of meaning that I have not grasped yet. What I already grasped is boring enough to justify my not existing. Obviously, it is possible that there is nothing available for humans other than the mundane cycle, however in that case it does not matter if you are satisfied or disturbed, rational or insane, rich or poor, Einstein or a frog: you die, everything you worked for dies. Pointless. This means that I have to assume purpose, even if I cannot see it, simply in order to continue to function. And please DO NOT confuse this with religious hopefulness, it is bare necessity. What would happen if your life was as good as a frog, not better, how would this really matter? How is what you have already grasped justification for you not existing? Why is the cycle mundane? Why couldn't it be wonderful? Hopefulness I understand, being disturbed, insane, poor, or a frog (lets say in mental function) if you are a human would be rather hopeless to many (discounting happy disturbed, insane, poor, and mentally disabled people). But we are human. Are you confused or are you just confusing me? Essentially, I am saying that much of what we are is tied up with engaging in the unending proliferation of the species. You seem to be discrediting that fundamental aspect of who we are. Sure we have goals and meaning, however personal and non-universal they may be, sure we inherently then have hope, if we have goals. Honestly, I only read the first paragraph and found the popooing of our biological nature confusing. We have to be above all that life stuff, is what it sounded like, and I don't know why we should be.
_____________________ It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

Lex
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 03/18/08 - 02:21 PM:	#5
loveofsophia wrote: Are you confused or are you just confusing me? Essentially, I am saying that much of what we are is tied up with engaging in the unending proliferation of the species. You seem to be discrediting that fundamental aspect of who we are. Sure we have goals and meaning, however personal and non-universal they may be, sure we inherently then have hope, if we have goals. Honestly, I only read the first paragraph and found the popooing of our biological nature confusing. We have to be above all that life stuff, is what it sounded like, and I don't know why we should be. I am not confused, but I am analyzing an issue on which I do not have all necessary data, therefore blank spots (not incongruities) must arise in the definition. 1) If I were a frog, there is no way I could be happy. That is complete bs. A frog does not think or strive. A frog exists. 2) I don't believe in happiness for any 1 person. That would imply that in order to be happy, a person can ignore the unhappiness of the rest of the population. This NECESSARILY would imply that any societal element does not have to care about any other similar societal element unless it PLEASES him, and that is hypocritical=evil (if you disagree with this statement I am fully prepared to argue it). 3) I am completely bored. The "wonderful" life cycle you described bores the hell out of me. No, I am not drunk, high, abused, or stupid, or even depressed. I simply analyzed all of the possibilities and I find nothing interesting as a life goal (nothing currently feasible). Being this completely bored, I cannot be happy. My assumption was that the human psyche cannot oscillate to the point that one person can be completely happy in a situation where another cannot. For crying out loud, if what you say is true and it is enough to be content to be happy, than crack addicts are the happiest people on this planet and creating a world similar to the Matrix would be the ultimate possible utopia (actually the Matrix type of world I do not disagree with at all. Nobody has to suffer, die, etc., so it is an intriguing psychological playground). I can't get into the heads of those psych students to understand what they meant by happiness. Once again, I would appreciate a clear unequivocal statement of your position: saying that "Happiness is closely correlated (though you did not say it = living well) to living well", do you mean that being pleased = being happy? In that case, pleasant "emotion" is the measure of happiness, and it follows that human happiness = animal contentment. I am saying that though this may be the ultimate available form of happiness, I am totally unsatisfied by it (aka bored). Therefore the only reason for me to continue living is the necessary assumption that there is something that I have not comprehended which constitutes happiness and that by living I might have a >limit 1/n as n->infinity chance of finding or creating it.

TheArchitect
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Posted 03/18/08 - 08:33 PM:	#6
I agree. Subconsciously, people love and look forward to romantic situations for the ultimate goal of having sex in the end. It is also the highest form of pleasure. Also, it seems that virtually all people have some degree of common interest in sex. Music, video games, and chatting are divided interests(meaning it can be one man's trash and another man's treasure) but sex is a shared pleasured by everyone.

Lex
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Posted 03/18/08 - 10:16 PM:	#7
TheArchitect wrote: I agree. Subconsciously, people love and look forward to romantic situations for the ultimate goal of having sex in the end. It is also the highest form of pleasure. Also, it seems that virtually all people have some degree of common interest in sex. Music, video games, and chatting are divided interests(meaning it can be one man's trash and another man's treasure) but sex is a shared pleasured by everyone. (Yay, a concrete argument ^^) So are you saying that I, as somebody without much emotion, is perpetually unhappy by definition? Also, how am I unhappy if I do not feel sad about it. The notion of romantic situations has actually been the only possible basis for happiness that I could imagine ever. However, while physically stimulating, I fail to find anything interesting about it. In effect, it is unexciting for me. Also, can happiness really be something that just exists and ends? Wouldn't a lack of happiness be BAD, meaning that death is bad. Since we all die, we can't continuously be happy (assuming finality of death). Would physical contentment on a hedonistic primitive level be enough for happiness? I disagree for many reasons. One is: as I mentioned, I am very bored by all aspects of life which I can comprehend. That means that you can transcend or entirely miss this state of contentment. 2: As I said, this means that taking drugs is the highest form of happiness. It yields a state of perpetual euphoria and contentment unlike anything else. pr0gm3r wrote: is ultimate happiness completely base on emotional feeling? A puppy wiggle its tails, when it feel happy and A chimp will claps its hands and jumping when it feel happy. But human never affirmed animal's happiness. then Animal should not feel happy? (yes,no) Animal also feel happy but human did not sanction of happiness in animal, So lets take emotional out of happiness equation. Then how do human define happiness without emotional feeling? Happiness is pointless when everything that we do will dies anyway so why work? That is not true... I believed that Happiness = "being love" (i.g. in love with a person, or concreted material, or abstract materials, or the invisible material) and without emotion human cannot define happiness. Still abstract. What can I do with that definition? What is this "love"? Why should I be in love? Is it impossible for me to be happy since I know that I cannot fall in love in your sense? What is emotion? Elaborate, make a more well-defined argument. What I gathered from your post: happiness is a physiological state of the satisfaction of animal needs.

dimitri
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Posted 03/18/08 - 10:28 PM:	#8
What is happiness? Looking for the answer to this question we should find out in the fist place - when we feel ourselves happy or when we feel something from which we can judge about what the happiness could be if achieved. First, happiness is not a state which can be achieved once and for all. It is rather an accompanying condition, something like pleasure which we feel when we eat or take praise from somebody etc, which shows that we are on the right path to achieving something or have already done it. That something is some of our intrinsic goals which we can not define or formulate quite clearly, but which we nevertheless strive to attain; and the feeling of happiness or pleasure shows us how successful we are in that respect. Or it looks as if we could not know about it (our success) using just our ability of rational judgment, which seems rather obvious if we think of how we could know about our need in food without feeling hunger or satiety that inform us of that. The problem then is to find out how our goals are formulated. I think they born from our experience: observation of the success of other people around us and problems we meet in our day-do-day life trying to get what we want. Our success (or realization of our goals) in life is largely dependent on interaction with other people or on that how cooperative they are with us. And these people have their own goals and to realize them they also look for good partners. We are all looking for people which could help us in fulfillment of our tasks. We have some (not quite rational) mechanism of estimation of events from the point of view of how conducive they are to realization of our goals. And we feel pleasure and love and all kind of positive emotions if our inner expert estimates them as such. And to the contrary we feel hate, fear etc if it estimates the event as harmful to our goals. And only then – after getting this verdict - we look for reasons (explanations) of our feelings and as a rule we find them without much difficulty. That does not mean of course that all our explanations are correct, just that they (strangely enough?!) coincide with our feelings. Often we get to know about our goals through our feelings, and what we discover can sometimes be surprising for us… Even more: if we want to know about our real goals we have to study things which give us pleasure or displeasure. Which we in fact do to some extend performing a kind of reconstruction. Of our task to hoard goods for instance we can learn by the feeling of reluctance or distress which accompanies our parting with something belonging to us. One thing it seems can be said with some certainty that nature having not much trust in our reasoning faculty provided us with a more reliable mechanism for choosing or forming our goals. There is an obvious connection between our rationality and this mechanism though not a simple or a linear one. We can influence our inner judge or his principles of judgment giving rational arguments, though not easily and not thoroughly. We for instance can tell him all kind of horrible stories about the harm of smoking cigarets not being able to achieve the effect we like. We have many goals (some of them are explicit and some implicit) and our feeling of happiness or contentment is depended on how they are realized… We can limit them to things that are more or less under our control (such as choosing some independent profession etc), appoint ourselves as the best judges of our success and feel more or less happy… And surely we do that too at some extend. We limit, though not quite voluntarily, our desires rejecting the less practicable ones… Our choice of goals takes place mainly through the mechanism of preferences. We make a choice among some not being able to get all of them at once. So others pass away. And that too is our usual way of dealing with things... So much of pleasure and happiness, which in my opinion present just concomitant phenomena, which helps us in orientation in life without trusting too much our reasoning faculty. Can we estimate beauty rationally, by reasoning? Or choice our partner for sex or for marriage? What I have said it perhaps rather vague, but I found it difficult to explain what I think of happiness in more consecutive and convincing way…

Lex
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Posted 03/18/08 - 10:40 PM:	#9
As I said, I am unmoved by all that. No emotion at all from love, interaction, expectation. This cannot be what happiness is. Yes it is rather vague, actually you do not make an argument but a series of statements that could be true or false or have no truth value at all.

TheArchitect
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Posted 03/19/08 - 05:10 PM:	#10
Lex wrote: So are you saying that I, as somebody without much emotion, is perpetually unhappy by definition? Also, how am I unhappy if I do not feel sad about it. The notion of romantic situations has actually been the only possible basis for happiness that I could imagine ever. However, while physically stimulating, I fail to find anything interesting about it. In effect, it is unexciting for me. You are saying that romance is purely a concept created by people, right? That's what I was trying to say; many people go after romance, but they are actually subconsciously looking for sex. I don't know how to compare this because I've never taken drugs before, but I think sex would be the highest form of natural pleasure. I'm sure there will one day be a way to stimulate artificial pleasure by manually configuring the brain, but that's not really what we're talking about.

Lex
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Posted 03/19/08 - 05:28 PM:	#11
TheArchitect wrote: Lex wrote: So are you saying that I, as somebody without much emotion, is perpetually unhappy by definition? Also, how am I unhappy if I do not feel sad about it. The notion of romantic situations has actually been the only possible basis for happiness that I could imagine ever. However, while physically stimulating, I fail to find anything interesting about it. In effect, it is unexciting for me. You are saying that romance is purely a concept created by people, right? That's what I was trying to say; many people go after romance, but they are actually subconsciously looking for sex. I don't know how to compare this because I've never taken drugs before, but I think sex would be the highest form of natural pleasure. I'm sure there will one day be a way to stimulate artificial pleasure by manually configuring the brain, but that's not really what we're talking about. In a way it is. Because theoretically it is possible to stimulate the brain artificially into a perpetual state of euphoria. It is also possible to defeat death by researching the aging process more thoroughly. In that case, we could have a whole bunch of happy brains in jars. No need for anything else. To me, it does not seem like happiness, however, although if your argument that sex is the highest form of natural pleasure is correct, it would indeed be the best thing possible for humans. Of course, I am still not excited by that. If that is indeed the highest form of pleasure, then happiness is impossible for the current individual me. Perhaps if I got lobotomy I would be content with living like a pleased vegetable, but that would be another person. So if your argument is correct, for me, it would mean that happiness is impossible.

Lex
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Posted 03/20/08 - 01:32 PM:	#12
What I am attempting to do is to discern what exactly happiness is. You define happiness by love. That is already something to work with. However, first you must define love. Since you are saying that loved cannot be separated from emotion, you have to define emotion as well. And by define, I mean thoroughly: not "it is what I experience when I do this or that", but rather a complete comprehensible definition. From what you said, I would define love to be physiological attraction and emotion as a physiological response to external stimuli similar to sensation: all it does is tell us whether our body is in a good condition or not. After all, we feel pleasure from being fed, not in physical pain, warm, etc. In that case love is simply desire for sex. I already said that I do not experience much emotion. What I do is limited to my frustration at being bored. I cannot define happiness through emotion.

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Posted 03/20/08 - 05:19 PM:	#13
Happiness is not a single thing. Happiness is all in the mind's eye. To be happy requires two things: 1. The absence of undesired emotion. This could be guilt, regret, jealousy, boredom, frustration etc. Remember that sadness is not a real emotion, just an effect of other emotions. Before someone can be happy they must rid themselves of "sadness" otherwise any happiness you obtain will only last as long as you can forget your negative emotions. 2. The acquiring of desired emotions. Compassion, truthfulness, pride, etc. Happiness, like sadness, is a collection of emotions rather than an emotion itself. Aiming and achieving the goals set by yourself can provide you with "happiness". Failing these goals however, can often distance you even further from happiness by introducing new "sadness". A kind of risk vs reward. This ends up giving us something along the lines of: Sad -> Content(Neutral) -> Happy Emotion is the defining factor of Happiness. Physical pleasure is simply creating the feeling of euphoria. Wealth is only appealing because of greed, satisfaction, pride, etc. Anything physical translates to emotion to create happiness. Without emotion your could not know if you are happy. You cannot be both sad and happy in the long term. In the short term an emotion may be fleeting. But to achieve happiness you must be devoid of sadness, i.e. be content. But the emotions required for happiness and sadness are variables. Created based on the nature and nurturing of the subject. There will be emotions that naturally make someone happy or sad and there will be emotions that can be defined either way in the course of their life. Greed may be a source of great happiness for some, if they can sate it. Whereas the same emotion could cause sadness in someone taught differently. So my philosophy here is that Happiness is the correct balance of emotion based on nature and nurture. Of course social interaction does play an important role in happiness as many emotions require a community to be properly utilized. Edited by Glazed on 03/20/08 - 05:26 PM

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Posted 03/20/08 - 05:27 PM:	#14
Lex, you include these long superfluous dissertations that are redundant because I think most of us already understand what you're asking us to read, duhhhhh! Stick to the point of your questions, it's easier on us. For example, note these two paragraphs in your original post. Lex wrote: Knowing that, we have to come to the realization that humans are a social entity. We must live in groups in order to attain the ability to educate ourselves and understand the world around us and technologically advance our society. This serves to enable us to protect human rights and lives. A perfect society would be precisely that: a group dedicated to the protection and satisfaction of itself, without sacrificing the interests of any individual element. In a society, a human being usually ends up growing up in a family, receiving an education, attaining some degree of wealth and status (varying depending on circumstances, ability and motivation) and dying. The cycle repeats. Humans rarely bother to define why they exist specifically. Working towards wealth, we end up dying rather abruptly cutting off any necessity to define a purpose beyond wealth and power.

Lex
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Posted 03/20/08 - 06:35 PM:	#15
Glazed: So happiness is emotion translated from physical experienced imposed over a state of contentment? Are you saying that by being perfectly content (fed, free of pain, etc.) and experiencing positive emotion a person is happy? I will have to disagree that boredom is a negative emotion. In fact, it is a lack of emotions. For example, I did not go to my high school graduation because I failed to see any excitement in the occasion, and people obviously looked at me like I am retarded because to them it was a something important. Do you think that the state of being perpetually bored is related to negative experience? Then tell me what kind of positive experience would change that. Mortalfool: superfluous dissertations? Where exactly? All I did was respond to the arguments presented before me by 1: attempting to summarize them so that the person could see if I understood correctly 2: Giving my opinion on the subject. Besides, what about these two paragraphs?

Glazed
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Posted 03/20/08 - 08:29 PM:	#16
A positive experience isn't always the solution to a bad emotion. I know when I'm bored, I feel bored. Maybe you aren't bored, but lacking in any real emotion. Also I never said boredom had to be a negative emotion ("But the emotions required for happiness and sadness are variables. Created based on the nature and nurturing of the subject."). But yes. If you can maintain an experience of positive emotions then you will experience happiness. If said emotion doesn't make you happy in the short term or long term then it is not truly a positive emotion. It might not be bad, but the emotion just isn't what you desire. If you can find something that makes you happy short term it is possible for it to make you happy in the long term. But only if you also remove the negative emotions. For example: You may feel happy while gardening (pride) But lack a real job (guilt/regret) You are happy because of the gardening, but it is not true happiness as you also feel bad about having no job. By getting a job you can quell the bad emotions. But unless you find a fulfilling job you would still feel bad. (regret) You could find a better job or make peace with your current job to get rid of that feeling. Now when you garden you have the pride but not the guilt or regret nagging away inside. When you can feel happy without having something to be unhappy about, that is true happiness. (Also an emotion can be physically attained or mentally. The point is all happiness is caused by how you feel)

Lex
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Posted 03/20/08 - 08:48 PM:	#17
That is the problem. There is no activity that makes me feel positive emotions. Why should I feel these? After all, one does not have to like every activity, and different people may like different things. It is also possible for a person not to enjoy anything. If I were, for example, gardening, or performing any other activity, I would have to ask myself: should I feel positive emotions now? If there is no indication that I should, then why should I be happy? Explain why (except by conventional mass belief) should there be an activity that makes me feel this positive emotion?

Glazed
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Posted 03/20/08 - 08:51 PM:	#18
"But the emotions required for happiness and sadness are variables. Created based on the nature and nurturing of the subject." If you cannot find anything that makes you feel happy then it is very likely you will never be happy. Don't know what else to tell you.

Lex
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Posted 03/20/08 - 09:22 PM:	#19
That is only by THAT definition of happiness. I am looking for something less primitive than "tending the lawn, earning money, falling in "love" (having sex), conquering the world", etc.

TheArchitect
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Posted 03/20/08 - 10:45 PM:	#20
Lex wrote: You are saying that romance is purely a concept created by people, right? That's what I was trying to say; many people go after romance, but they are actually subconsciously looking for sex. I don't know how to compare this because I've never taken drugs before, but I think sex would be the highest form of natural pleasure. I'm sure there will one day be a way to stimulate artificial pleasure by manually configuring the brain, but that's not really what we're talking about. Of course, I am still not excited by that. If that is indeed the highest form of pleasure, then happiness is impossible for the current individual me. Perhaps if I got lobotomy I would be content with living like a pleased vegetable, but that would be another person. So if your argument is correct, for me, it would mean that happiness is impossible. In a way it is. Because theoretically it is possible to stimulate the brain artificially into a perpetual state of euphoria. It is also possible to defeat death by researching the aging process more thoroughly. In that case, we could have a whole bunch of happy brains in jars. No need for anything else. To me, it does not seem like happiness, however, although if your argument that sex is the highest form of natural pleasure is correct, it would indeed be the best thing possible for humans. Assuming that there is no spiritual phenomena inside us humans or the universe, and that happiness is just a result of certain states/conditions withing the brain at a given point in time, then obviously is possible to manipulate these states to create a perpetual euphoric feeling, as you mentioned. That means if you can map out which parts of the brain are stimulated during an orgasm, you have the potential to make it last forever by artificially stimulating it in the same manner(even if you were looking at a pic of shit and blood, you would still be experiencing orgasms). And plus, in this "pleased veggie" state, you would be too ignorant to care about what you look like from the outside. Ignorance is bliss; therefore, it doesn't matter if they put your brain in a beaker or whatever, since happiness is the greatest possible good. If I can get happiness in any possible manner, then hell, why not? That's what I live for. Modified definition of 'ignorance': the happier you are, the less you will be asking questions

Makarismos
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Posted 03/21/08 - 06:39 AM:	#21
Lex wrote: That is only by THAT definition of happiness. I am looking for something less primitive than "tending the lawn, earning money, falling in "love" (having sex), conquering the world", etc. Lex, happiness is a state of mind. If you’re never happy, then you will never be happy. More fully - If you are never happy with anything which life could throw at you, if you always complain about your lot regardless of what it is, or even if you constantly yearn for the unobtainable, you will never be happy with what you have. The End.

Lex
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Posted 03/21/08 - 10:26 AM:	#22
TheArchitect: if that is true, why are you not on drugs? That is too simple for me to be satisfied. If I were indeed given an option to be in a permanently euphoric immortal state I would refuse. No point in that, nothing interesting for me. Not happiness. Makarismos: I agree it is a state of mind. However, I am trying to define HOW to obtain this state of mind: what constitutes happiness. Just because life right now is too pathetic to yield satisfaction, I refuse to reject the possibility of happiness based on the INTELLECTUAL capacity of humans. (not hedonistic contentment) Edited by Paul on 03/23/08 - 06:43 PM. Reason: removed idiotic "WRONG" shout

TheArchitect
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Posted 03/21/08 - 11:20 AM:	#23
Lex wrote: WRONG. TheArchitect: if that is true, why are you not on drugs? That is too simple for me to be satisfied. If I were indeed given an option to be in a permanently euphoric immortal state I would refuse. No point in that, nothing interesting for me. Not happiness. So why is taking drugs going to give me eternal happiness? There are repercussions for taking drugs, which makes it impossible to become 'eternally happy.' I think you have missed my point by a mile. Plus you are a fool to think that a permanently euphoric immortal state "has no point." The logic flows in the manner that you would be happier than ever to be in that state once you are already in that state. Edited by TheArchitect on 03/21/08 - 11:24 AM

Glazed
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Posted 03/21/08 - 11:57 AM:	#24
Continuing on my theory. You mention you feel bored and frustrated. You also seem slightly egotistical (not an offense, just making an observation for my argument) as if you are proud of being bored and frustrated, like being terminally depressed is an achievement. Maybe you can't be happy because of the nature and nurture. You seem like a cynic, and a cynical person finds it extremely hard to be happy as anything enjoyable is analyzed specifically to discover the downside.

Lex
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Posted 03/21/08 - 03:32 PM:	#25
TheArchitect wrote: Lex wrote: WRONG. TheArchitect: if that is true, why are you not on drugs? That is too simple for me to be satisfied. If I were indeed given an option to be in a permanently euphoric immortal state I would refuse. No point in that, nothing interesting for me. Not happiness. So why is taking drugs going to give me eternal happiness? There are repercussions for taking drugs, which makes it impossible to become 'eternally happy.' I think you have missed my point by a mile. Plus you are a fool to think that a permanently euphoric immortal state "has no point." The logic flows in the manner that you would be happier than ever to be in that state once you are already in that state. No, you simply misunderstood. What I mean is: if there is a drug without repercussion, free, and granting immortality (aka perpetually sustained state of euphoria): eternal "happiness" (the way you define it). So you are saying that this is the state of happiness? If you are in a perpetually euphoric immortal state, I am guessing will not even be able to think. In any case you will not be performing any intelligent action: you might as well not exist. I think your intelligence will deteriorate in this state until you are a subhuman (not sentient) entity. Glazed: I guess I got caught ^^ True the state I am in is a result cynicism. HOWEVER, because I over-examine everything, I gain deeper insight into it. The side effect is that I lack contentment, and I actually do see it as an achievement. By my logic, you SHOULD NOT be happy in an imperfect world, and I hardly see it as being selfish. The downside you mention is an inherent part of any activity, to me ignoring it is like ignoring an elephant in the middle of the room... while it is sitting on you. Edited by Paul on 03/23/08 - 06:45 PM. Reason: removed ad hom

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