CAN money buy you happiness?

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Excellion1498
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Jan 20, 2012 10:41 PM #579956

Personally, I think that you can be happy without money, just a lot happier with it.

walker90234

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Jan 20, 2012 11:06 PM #579974

meh, logically they were quite sound, apart from that one flaw. even with it, theyre still very convincing

Fusion
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Jan 21, 2012 12:10 AM #580003

Convincing!=logically sound

Zed
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Jan 21, 2012 12:14 AM #580006

"Logically sound" is actually a very specific notion, but if I push the point I'm just going to sound like an even more pedantic version of Ash. So I'm just going to exit the debate at this time, having made my point.

Fusion
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Jan 21, 2012 12:26 AM #580020

gg .

TheSaw

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Jan 21, 2012 1:04 AM #580057

Zed is only correct if the monkeys are trying to produce every possible combination of keys - up to infinite length. If the text you're "looking" for is of finite length than the probability of it being produced is 100%.

Each time a monkey outputs a text of length n where n is the length of text you're looking for they have the same non-zero probability of outputting the correct text. Each time they have probability P = 1 - P < 1 of outputting something other than the correct text. For them to avoid the correct text on the first try has probability P, for them to avoid the correct text on both of their first two tries has probability P^2, and for them to avoid the correct text K times has probability P^K and as K tends towards infinity P^K tends to 0. In other words the probability of them avoiding the correct text will have a probability of 0 given infinite attempts.

I believe the premise he was arguing against was that every possible human life would occur given an eternity of time; which you have to grant so long as human lives have a finite number of instants within them.

Fuckin' bam.

walker90234

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Jan 21, 2012 10:11 AM #580191

ooooh, burn
my argument wroks again

Zed
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Jan 21, 2012 11:47 AM #580217

The man's good.

But I think the whole monkey thing's actually a moot point because

Quote from walker90234

premise 4) Money making you happy is logically possible

is actually the debate of this thread. Your argument begs the question.

zawmbee
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Jan 21, 2012 11:52 AM #580220

I'm sorry, but if you don't think money can buy happiness then you're not fantasizing hard enough.

TheSaw

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Jan 21, 2012 1:45 PM #580237

Because the debate question is "can", I think the answer has to be unequivocally yes. Clearly there are things which money can buy, and some of those things make some people happy.

However, for people with any depth of character money can only really buy you relief from financial stress - one impediment to happiness.

walker90234

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Jan 21, 2012 7:28 PM #580362

Quote from walker90234
Thank GOD ;)

However, as you yourself agreed, even if it is by no means certain. it is very likley for such an event to occur.

Soooo, back to the deductive:
1) the universe is infinite
2) Due to this it is EXTREMLEY likley that money has made someone happy somewhere at some tim
conclusion) it is extremley likley that money can make you happy

There, thats the point I would like to leave my argument at, and I hope you all agree with it.

and from there, lets move away from the metaphysical, as it appears that we have exhausted that line of reasoning, and come to a reasonable conclusion :)

if i remember correctly, we have still come to the conclusion that in a universe as big as ours, even if it is by no means certain, it IS extremley likley that money can buy you happiness. lets drop the metaphysical at that, as we just seem to be going in circles

Zed
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Jan 21, 2012 11:04 PM #580442

I think the size of the universe has more to do with showing that if it can happen it has happened - not that anything can happen. Assuming the argument as a whole holds, it doesn't show that somewhere gravity repels things.

But yeah, I agree with TheSaw that it seems obvious enough that money can make you happy. You might have an unusual fetish.

walker90234

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Jan 22, 2012 8:26 PM #580663

Quote from Zed
You might have an unusual fetish.

im confused

Zed
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Jan 22, 2012 11:22 PM #580779

I don't know about you, but I would consider it unusual for someone to want to have sex with a large pile of cash.

walker90234

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Jan 23, 2012 2:31 PM #580956

who said anything about sex?