Happiness
Started by: Zed | Replies: 17 | Views: 1,198
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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Nevertheless, the source of happiness and what it correlates with seems like a good debate unto itself... Anyone want to hop on that?
Yes, as it happens. What is happiness? where does it come from? How can you acheive it? This is what I've already said on the subject:
If you think too much it will make you unhappy. I thought about death for a while, and then I couldn't sleep. Then I came through that stage and thought, "If it's inevitable and there's nothing that I can do about it, why worry? It won't change anything." Then I started thinking about happiness and what it actually means to be happy. I am happy if I am not currently in pain and there is little prospect of pain occuring in the near future. Pain is temporary, so in that knowledge I can maintain a cheery optimism even whilst it is occuring.
I find happiness in my own powerlessness. When there is nothing that I can do there is no benefit from letting it get to me. I then take this one stage further with determinist physicalist principles by which I philosophise that I have no free will and that what appears to be my consciousness is essentially just along for the ride. In this manner I make my self (two words deliberately) powerless in all situations, thus rendering me genericly happy.
It's all in the cognition.
alive2Posts: 1,331
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View Profile Obviously there is no one answer for this. A million of factors in everyday life can contribute to making a person happy, such as money, loving friends and family and so on, but they are not in any way ensuring happiness in themselves. A person can have all that, and be miserable. There is no formula for happiness. In the end, I believe that we control our own emotions, although it isn't always that easy.
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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View Profile I don't think money makes anyone happy (excepting those who have some sort of unusual fetish). In itself it has no value. It's worth even less than the paper it's printed on because you can at least write on ordinary paper wheras a note is already written on.
Fr0zEnPh0eNiXPosts: 505
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View Profile I don't think money makes anyone happy (excepting those who have some sort of unusual fetish). In itself it has no value. It's worth even less than the paper it's printed on because you can at least write on ordinary paper wheras a note is already written on.
Happiness... as they say... is where you find it.
In being an emotion, like anything, it has specific triggers unique to each individual person based on life experiences and nature. Two people can live the exact same life and pull happiness from different things because each person has their own point of view on what would cause happiness.
For me, I don't honestly know what causes happiness, it feels like something well out of my control.
alive2Posts: 1,331
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View Profile Common, don't give me the money has no value crap, it obviously does have a value: we can buy shit for it. It doesn't matter that it has no value "in itself", because it's never "in itself". Money has the value we all agree it has, and whether we like it or not, we all agree that it has a shitload of value at the moment.
Either way, that wasn't my point. Feel free to replace "money, loving friends and family and so on" with whatever you think can make people happy, it doesn't change anything really.
Fr0zEnPh0eNiXPosts: 505
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View Profile Common, don't give me the money has no value crap, it obviously does have a value: we can buy shit for it. It doesn't matter that it has no value "in itself", because it's never "in itself". Money has the value we all agree it has, and whether we like it or not, we all agree that it has a shitload of value at the moment.
Either way, that wasn't my point. Feel free to replace "money, loving friends and family and so on" with whatever you think can make people happy, it doesn't change anything really.
Objects have value because we as humans assign value to them. Therefore they have value. So you would be right.
If currency lost it's value because people stopped using it, it would revert to it's default form, which is... worth nothing.
It's all about perspective really.
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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View Profile Common, don't give me the money has no value crap, it obviously does have a value: we can buy shit for it. It doesn't matter that it has no value "in itself", because it's never "in itself". Money has the value we all agree it has, and whether we like it or not, we all agree that it has a shitload of value at the moment.
Either way, that wasn't my point. Feel free to replace "money, loving friends and family and so on" with whatever you think can make people happy, it doesn't change anything really.
But the money doesn't make anyone happy - it's what you buy with the money that gives you the happiness. What you are doing when you buy something is acheiving a goal that you had set for yourself, and that makes you happy. When I acheive my goal of not feeling pain it makes me happy. Goals are what make people happy. If I have said anything before that contradicts this then I retract it - this is my new hypothesis.
alive2Posts: 1,331
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View Profile money made scrooge mcduck happy!
but to be honest, I think this is such a broad, and in many ways subjective subject, that reaching one statement as to what makes people happy is meaningless. Take for example your "goals make people happy" hypothesis. I do agree that achieving goals makes people happy, absolutely, but having that as your theory as to what "causes" happiness is simply too close minded. One example that would fall outside of the goal category, is gifts. Yesterday a friend gave me an ice cream. I had no goals of getting an ice cream yesterday, and I didn't achieve any goals when it was given to me. Still, it made me happy, and I think it was a nice thing to do.
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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View Profile That is a small hole in the hypothesis, yes. I could try to adapt around it by saying that you have a general goal to accumulate as many resources as possible, or possibly that your goal is to have successful social interaction and the ice cream is evidence of success, but that would be iffy. It might work, but I'd be starting along the same path that is charicteristic of a schitzophrenic trying to justify his claims, and that's rarely a good sign.
Flood2Posts: 3,326
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View Profile Happiness is an emotion that comes and goes. I don't really think you could describe someone has happy. They may be happy a lot but its just like any other emotion. No one is happy all the time, no one is mad all the time. This isn't really a debate, its just an emotion.
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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View Profile We are debating what causes you to experience that emotion. I think the acheival of the goals that you have set for yourself. alive thinks it's more complex. No one else has really voiced an opinion yet.
Omega2Posts: 1,852
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View Profile Well, the accumulated things that you experience in your life, or at least within a certain time period, can make you happy. If one is content with what he or she has experienced/fulfilled in a certain period, then that person can be deemed 'happy' about what he or she has done.
For example, if I get a good mark on my report card, then I will be happy about it, because I am content with what I have done to achieve that mark. However, my state of happiness towards that grade could disappear if I saw a bad mark as well on my report card. Happiness comes and goes.
Mantha2Posts: 8,267
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View Profile I pretty much agree with what Fr0zEn PeAnUtS said on the matter. We ourselves set the value of things that makes us happy, and it varies from person to person.
My logic here is like this, if you can use logic when it comes to feelings ... For my classmate for instance, the worst thing in her life this moment is a flood of exams awaiting us in this month. She's so nervous and whatnot. But for me, either you make it or you fail, it all depends on the way you study. And you can take the exam again too. For me, the worst thing at the moment is the fact that I was summoned to the court to testify for or aganst my father. So I find my classmate quite fortunate that the worst thing for her are exams.
Same concept goes for happiness imo.
Zed2Posts: 11,572
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View Profile I pretty much agree with what Fr0zEn PeAnUtS said on the matter. We ourselves set the value of things that makes us happy, and it varies from person to person.
My logic here is like this, if you can use logic when it comes to feelings ... For my classmate for instance, the worst thing in her life this moment is a flood of exams awaiting us in this month. She's so nervous and whatnot. But for me, either you make it or you fail, it all depends on the way you study. And you can take the exam again too. For me, the worst thing at the moment is the fact that I was summoned to the court to testify for or aganst my father. So I find my classmate quite fortunate that the worst thing for her are exams.
Same concept goes for happiness imo.
Shit. That sounds nasty.
You say values, I say goals. I think we're of the same opinion here mostly. These things get so boring when everyone agrees.
Flood2Posts: 3,326
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View Profile You achieve it the same way you do any other emotion. When something good happens for you, like if you win a game, it makes you feel happy. If someone punches you it makes you feel mad. Like I said, theres not much to it.