Afterlife and Pre-life

@wynn --

I don't think happiness is as relative as you suggest.
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Why not? Because it wouldn't fit well with the philosophy you espouse here if that were the case? Give me your reasons for thinking this.

And many people whom you claim are happy, don't seem happy to me at all.
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And how they seem to you is irrelevant to whether they actually are happy. Different people are made happy by different things. I know one guy who enters into a state of ecstasy when he gets insulted, that's just his thing. Who are you to say that he's not really happy when you don't even know him(or understand much of anything about the human brain)?

However, you're right that happiness isn't completely subjective. There are two things that make us all happy, serotonin and dopamine.
 
Arioch said:
@wynn --



Why not? Because it wouldn't fit well with the philosophy you espouse here if that were the case? Give me your reasons for thinking this.



And how they seem to you is irrelevant to whether they actually are happy. Different people are made happy by different things. I know one guy who enters into a state of ecstasy when he gets insulted, that's just his thing. Who are you to say that he's not really happy when you don't even know him(or understand much of anything about the human brain)?

However, you're right that happiness isn't completely subjective. There are two things that make us all happy, serotonin and dopamine.
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I told you that in confidence!
 
JDawg said:
Translation: You raise some excellent points, and I have no way to defend my position...but since I would never admit this, I'm simply going to insult you and pretend your post has no merit.
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You've lost a few things in that translation.
 
Arioch said:
@wynn --

Why not? Because it wouldn't fit well with the philosophy you espouse here if that were the case? Give me your reasons for thinking this.

And how they seem to you is irrelevant to whether they actually are happy. Different people are made happy by different things. I know one guy who enters into a state of ecstasy when he gets insulted, that's just his thing. Who are you to say that he's not really happy when you don't even know him(or understand much of anything about the human brain)?

However, you're right that happiness isn't completely subjective. There are two things that make us all happy, serotonin and dopamine.
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People influence eachother.

What one person does affects, in some way or other, everyone and everything else.

People may indeed seem to be made happy by different things. But if a person in their pursuit of happiness negatively affects the happiness of others, those others will rebell and act to get their happiness back, thus negatively affecting the happiness of the other person.

IOW, as long as a person's happiness depends on the misery of others, nobody can be happy, especially not for long.

Which is why one person's true happiness is one that doesn't take anything away from other people (and other living beings).
 
@wynn --

People influence eachother.
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And nothing I've posted implicates otherwise.

What one person does affects, in some way or other, everyone and everything else.
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I suppose, although eventually the affect is dispersed enough as to have a negligible effect. And humans all have a natural tendency to favor the happiness of their in-group over the happiness of the out-group.

People may indeed seem to be made happy by different things.
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"People are indeed made happy by different things."

Edited for factual accuracy.

Seriously though, this is self evident. You are made happy by different things than I am, my likes are different from yours. While people are, indeed, connected by social strings, this doesn't mean that people are all made happy by the same things(well, except for things like those I listed in my last post, lol). Your conclusion doesn't follow logically from your premise.

But if a person in their pursuit of happiness negatively affects the happiness of others, those others will rebell and act to get their happiness back, thus negatively affecting the happiness of the other person.
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Oh you mean like the religious nuts who wake me up early on Saturday morning because it makes them happy?

Again though, this effect tends to become diluted as it spreads, until it has no or barely any noticeable effect at all.

IOW, as long as a person's happiness depends on the misery of others, nobody can be happy, especially not for long.
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Hey, I can see you're hanging off a mental cliff. I've got some reality here, why don't you get a grip on it?

Honestly, the very fact that some people are happy and others are not invalidates your argument.

Which is why one person's true happiness is one that doesn't take anything away from other people (and other living beings).
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Define "true happiness".
 
JDawg said:
Translation: You raise some excellent points, and I have no way to defend my position...but since I would never admit this, I'm simply going to insult you and pretend your post has no merit.
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Yep, getting tired of her 'enlightened' insult.
 
@wynn --

Ah, so a very, very, very, very, very, very, very rare form of happiness, one that's never been observed by human kind before. Gotcha.

I think I'd rather ignore that in favor of the happiness that is achievable.
 
Arioch said:
I think I'd rather ignore that in favor of the happiness that is achievable.
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The only problem with the pursuit of that kind of happiness is that it doesn't let one sleep at night, for fear of revenge from others and for making plans how to defend oneself against that revenge ...

:eek:
 
@wynn --

The only problem with the pursuit of that kind of happiness is that it doesn't let one sleep at night, for fear of revenge from others and for making plans how to defend oneself against that revenge ...
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You have this nasty habit of making gross generalizations that can only be wrong. You can speak for yourself with this, not for me or anyone else.
 
Arioch said:
You have this nasty habit of making gross generalizations that can only be wrong. You can speak for yourself with this, not for me or anyone else.
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Okay. So in a world of dangers and uncertainties, in a dog-eat-dog world, where constant battle for survival is going on on a variety of levels, you are one of the few who are at ease. :eek:
 
wynn said:
Okay. So in a world of dangers and uncertainties, in a dog-eat-dog world, where constant battle for survival is going on on a variety of levels, you are one of the few who are at ease. :eek:
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No, but the entirety of human civilization and the lifting of humans [through technology] above the plane of natural life has been towards that goal.
 
@wynn --

If you think that I'm the only one sleeping soundly then you haven't met anyone. There are billions of people on this planet, I'm more than sure that the majority of the ones in developed nations are sleeping soundly, and the others are in situations that simply can't be compared to mine.

However, even when I was in the forest for a week and had to worry about wolf attacks at night I still managed to sleep soundly. Perhaps the problem here isn't me but the premise on which you built your view, that true happiness doesn't exist.
 
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