Survival or Happiness?
One could argue that happiness has evolved into life as a survival mechanism. In a general sense, the things that make us happy revolve around concepts that are central to our survival. Essentially, that pleasure and pain are the only motivators of our species and they have evolved in ways that increase our chances of surviving. This would be a never-ending cycle known as the hedonic treadmill. Right here, the question can be asked, is an actual quality life attainable, or is it delusional that we think it is possible to have a personal net happiness? If the concept of pain and pleasure are intimately linked in the way that this idea suggests, wouldn't the measurement of one be dependant on the measurement of the other? This would make it irrelevant to try and measure because the average would always be equal. Instead of remaining on the hedonic treadmill, wouldn't a transhumanist solution be in order? Wouldn't it make more sense to either genetically or technologically get rid of emotions instead of doing nothing more than pushing the boulder from the Myth of Sisyphus to attain some fleeting sense of happiness that serves no real purpose other than increasing the probability that our genes get passed on?
Comments (92)
If we do seek pleasure we can never find it because human are bad at judging what make us happy
So we fall in and endless cycle of getting or doing things that don't make us happy in the long run
Why would we do such a thing? What possible motivation could we have if happiness is not good enough because it's too fleeting?
(Yes I know there may be no tomorrow)
You suggest we abandon the principle of happiness as a motivation. I LIKE it.
Quoting MonfortS26
No, it would not make more sense to rid ourselves of emotions.
Sisyphus ended up with his futile endless labor as a punishment by the Gods.
Most of us aren't passionate enough to piss off the gods, and besides, his punishment took place in the dark underworld [afterlife] not here, above ground. It is the passions, the emotions, that save us from being like sisyphus in this world.
Camus asks. He adds:
The surest path to the long hill and the big round rock is the stupefying loss of passion--the emotions. What mortal, above-ground proletarians should do about their work life is a good question, which bears on whether we will have a chance at happiness (one of those emotions you want to get rid of) or mere survival.
Not only does life suck, life is inherently sucktive, with sucktivity being an active agent, not only in human affairs (where it reaches it's highest most sucktive form) but in inanimate creatures as well. It all sucks.
Sick, sack, sock, suck. You should live in Minnesota where the weather especially sucks. We have some of the suckiest weather on earth (though not as bad as the deep south, where the weather sucks in the opposite direction, and everything mildews and molds as well).
:grin: I mistakenly pasted that twice.. maybe I was really trying to emphasize it :lol:
Yes, ever notice it is rare to get EXACTLY the weather you want? Well, maybe California.. but then it will be something else.
What if your passion is to reduce existential risk? In a world with a finite amount of resources, we can either dedicate them to a longer life or a 'happier' life for society. The answer to that question determines how to approach my passion. A balance could be struck between the two, but that balance runs the risk of killing us all. But does a balance need to be established? If pain is the default, the reason we would actually enjoy pleasure is because it is an escape from pain. Wouldn't this be a more efficient escape from pain than the natural one?
I like the passage, and I can agree to an extent that everything is fruitless, but wouldn't my proposal break the concepts that he speaks of. Things would still be pointless, but the pointlessness wouldn't affect us on an emotional level.
Happiness has nothing to do with pleasure or pain. Everyone will suffer in their life - sickness, the death of loved ones, pain. Happiness comes from how you handle the pain. Happiness is what Alan Watts calls "sanity, wholeness and integration," as he describes below.
The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the I out of the experience...Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realisation that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate I or mind can be found .... [Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.
I disagree that happiness is not a form of pleasure and I don't think that this specific passage is about happiness. I used to read Alan Watts and it bothered me when I read he was considered more of a spiritual entertainer than a philosopher. But when I look back at it, he wrote very simple ideas that he convoluted with a bunch of poetic nothingness, Honestly I think he helped me get into philosophy because I doubt I would've taken what he said as seriously had it not been difficult to interpret at times, but I have to agree with the spiritual entertainer label. It's still entertaining to read, but the entire passage above can be summed up as, the meaning of life is life itself. I don't really see what that has to do with happiness but perhaps I am mistaken.
I'll paraphrase what Watts said in a way that is more accurate than you did - The problem isn't pain, it's our struggle against pain. Other posters, including you, claim that the balance of pleasure and pain is what determines happiness. What Watts says speaks directly to that. Happiness is not being without pain, it is being without the struggle. What does Watts' status as an entertainer or a philosopher have to do with whether or not that is true?
That's fair. My generalized view of what Alan Watts does is take important concepts and present them in a confusing way in order to provoke thought in that area. I'm not discrediting him as important, but I don't think he had the habit of presenting actual truths. To me, it seems he is more of a disinformationist in the same sense that Reggie Watts is.
But you're right, that has nothing to do with whether or not it is true. Does he propose any evidence to suggest that this is the case though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no way for pain to exist without struggle. Wouldn't the rejection of the struggle to ease one's pain just leave them stuck in it. I agree that expecting to rid oneself from pain completely is futile, but removing the struggle completely would just be counterproductive and I see no reason to suggest that would make someone happier than another person who attempts to solve the problem that is causing the pain in the first place.
If we couldn't experience pain, it wouldn't affect us in any way.
Evidence? This is metaphysics, not medicine. It has to do with attitude and values - how you look at things. Buddhism's First Noble Truth (there are 4) - All life is suffering. Second Nobel Truth - Suffering is caused by desire. The desire for pleasure. The desire not to feel pain. Struggle.
Are you implying that the benefits of adopting different attitudes and values are somehow exempt from the concept of evidence or proof?
Quoting T Clark
Just because something is stated as being truth, does not make it true. All life is suffering? Nonsense, that would imply that happiness doesn't exist and would act as an argument in favor of my original argument anyway. To say that suffering is the default state of human nature is agreeable. Suffering is caused by desire? So when it comes to the desire not to be tortured, the suffering in that area comes from desire itself? Not the person shoving bamboo under your fingernails?
The pain comes from the torture. The suffering comes from the frustrated desire to not be tortured.
That just seems like an arbitrary boundary between the two definitions in order to make the statement that suffering is the result of desire true while keeping the reality that pain is caused by external forces also true. How are you defining pain vs suffering?
from someone’s backside, would be my best guess.
What evidence do you have that it isn’t?
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489
Happiness is subjective in the sense that different people value different things, but the only way that happiness could be unaffected by external factors would be if one valued nothing. It isn't possible for someone not to value basic needs. I'm willing to bet that even tribes in the Amazon eat and sleep. Eventually, some bodily function like hunger, or shivering will kick in and cause pain and suffering for the individual and the desire to resolve that pain will cause them to value a way to get rid of it. So yes, it is likely that some aspect of that study was affected by American culture. But when you say that happiness is a self-delusion unaffected by external factors, what are you saying? That emotional well-being doesn't exist, or that emotional well-being is entirely independent from physical well-being?
Evolution works FROM variation, not towards them. This makes the emergence of happiness all the more interesting. In fact all emotional states are evolved, as so each has to be offered towards this perspective. Hatred, love, guile, loyalty ... the whole panoply of human emotions have stood the test of survival and have had to remain to hosts who have had to produce viable progeny.
But evolution is not a thing that can choose or meld the creature's emotional spectrum. The only rubric is that some fail to reproduce.
So nothing really can be said on this topic despite the gallons of ink that are spilled by the fantasy science of evolutionary psychology.... except masturbatory speculation, based on a false and backwards teleology.
If this were the case, then every trait would either help or hurt the ability for an organism to reproduce. From a survival of the fittest mindset, traits that enable a species to survive and reproduce are obviously helpful. But traits that do not do so in any way are hurtful because they rely on the absence of a trait that is helpful. Saying that evolutionary psychology is a fantasy science is like saying that evolution is a fantasy science.
Well... obviously, except that at any given time 99% of all traits are survival neutral. The only ones that are significant are really important are negative ones - and they have to negatively impact on reproduction. Since the evolution is not 'interested', then you cannot say that any given traits has made a positive contribution, since the only rubric is having viable progeny. And that could be the result of an apparently pathological need to rape!!
I do not think you have any warrant to distill ONE emotion such as happiness out of the entire human set of emotions. Hate, since it also is part of human experience is as valid a candidate for an evo-psych analysis. But this is the myth of evo-psych, that they just cherry pick something and think of the nice traits and decide that is why we have it. It's rubbish. Because happiness can lead to not bothering to have children. Contentment can mean wanting to keep what you have rather then burden your life with kids!
Perhaps something as abstract as saying happiness is a survival mechanism is unwarranted, but it is rooted in the belief that pleasure and pain are the only motivators of human behavior. That is a 100% falsifiable statement. If they are the only motivators of human behavior, it would only make sense that they would structure themselves around behaviors that are beneficial to the survival of the species. Even if it also structures itself around the traits that are survival neutral, if it were to structure itself around something that was detrimental to the survival of a species, it would lead to that species extinction. Reducing emotions to pain and pleasure make them viable subjects for scientific inquiry in my opinion as long as pain and pleasure can be reduced to motivation and motivation can be structured around evolution.
Thats not a very specific definition, couldn't any emotion be considered a state of mind?
Quoting MonfortS26
Pain as physical, suffering as mental.
So much , so obvious. But you are changing the goal posts.
All mammals, and birds, probably reptiles too; experience pain and pleasure.
Let me remind you, that you were talking about 'happiness'.
I think happiness is a way of being in the world which may have evolved "as a survival mechanism" but limiting happiness's scope to pleasure and pain does not differentiate man from beast. One of the fundamental aspects of humanity is its desire to know, as Aristotle stated in his metaphysics "All men by nature desire to know”. The generation of meaning in life is essential for a happy life in my estimation.
The creative/generative/active power of meaning is only possible in conjunction with our relationship with others. Meaning in this intersubjective sense is inescapable and necessary for survival and if done right :blush: leads to a happy life.
So are you implying that it is possible to experience physical pain without experiencing mental pain?
I said humans specifically because I wanted to limit the domain of the discussion to the human experience. I don't think that humans are the only species that experience pain, but I don't know enough about the experience of all species to extend psychological hedonism to life itself and I doubt it would be correct to do so. And yeah I was talking about happiness, but I see happiness as being nothing more than a form of pleasure.
Yes, but can you say that there is no pain or pleasure present in the process of desiring to know and understanding? Perhaps that the reason we are motivated to know something is the same reason we are motivated to do anything else?
No, but as I said "limiting happiness's scope to pleasure and pain does not differentiate man from beast" which is not to say that these emotions don't motivate us, but rather that they are not the entire story, that the differentia between man and beast is knowledge.
But since the traits are not specific to humans you can't do that. Which is very much the point I was making, obviously. You are looking for human lived experience as a way of uncovering the evolutionary reason for those traits, but humans came ready supplied with them; traits that had already been a foregone conclusion for 100s of millions of years.
These traits are the very fabric of what makes an animal an animal. Evolution does not cherry pick, and so neither can you.
Yes. Mind over matter.
And you know this how?
You are having a laugh mate. It's called the theory of evolution and it has been happening for billions of years. Ask any gorilla!
Or spend five minutes with by dog and try to tell me only humans have emotions.
I think you are asking an epistemological question. How do you know I exist?
We don't. The current theory is that you're a cleverly programmed AI troll. One that's very stuck on materialism.
Is that the 'royal we"? If you don't know anyone exists then how do you pretend to speak for other people?
Maybe you can account for how it is that all living things share DNA?
Quoting Rich
How do you know this???
It's rubbish.
Why’s that? Emotion regulates our goals and hopes and decisions. You can’t avoid it. I don’t see no transhumanism saving the day.
I agree. Our passions lie at the heart of everything we do. It's what motivates us.
I do not think there is necessarily a 'reason' for all this.
I do not think these facts are especially human. In fact it is a complete no-brainer that we have evolved from mammal all of who have an emotional life which includes pain and pleasure.
If you want a 'reason', then one only has to ask how long would an individual last if food gave them pain or fatal dangers gave them pleasure. This is how evolution works. It's clumsy but effective.
Figments are often unpredictable and capricious.
You don't need a complete picture to reason. It may not be as rigorous to only apply my studies to the human condition, but it accomplishes goals that are relevant to me. Studying the human experience is a reasonable way to learn about the human experience. It may not lead to a perfect complete picture, but it would be unproductive to strive for a complete picture of anything.
How would you prove that it is possible to do so? Can you separate pain in the mind from visible pain on brain scans?
Right..instrumental existence moves forward..survival, maintain living environment and self, flee boredom with goal-driven (hoping for flow states)...and the repetitious nature of all things continues .., no romanticism will put the story in a different light.,
ALL variations, all traits must precede adaptations. For the natural process to work towards the resultant evolution the variation must be there to select. Nature does not and cannot pre choose, predict, or prepare. Thus characteristic are not explained by their evolved states; characteristics explain evolution.
When a species becomes by natural circumstances isolated from others of its kind it would seem that the ability to adapt becomes critical, and superior to any inherent dominant trait. Only those of a species who can adapt will survive. Maybe this is how some resessive traits can become dominant.
Dominance and recessiveness are misunderstood, and not particularly relevant. This has to do with the presentation of traits and how the phenotype differs from the genotype. It's a common misconception. Evolution is all about the phenotype whether that is the result of a recessive gene or a dominant one,
make no difference.
Quoting Cavacava
No individual has the 'ability to adapt'. We die with the genes we were born with. The point I was making that you seem to have missed is that, all traitspreexist their selection, and are only considered adaptations after some period of natural selection.
Isolation lowers the potential for variation, and gives the opportunity for divergence, from the ancestor. This because the isolated variant evolves at a lower rate. Smaller gene pools tend to homogenise. And if, when isolated, the environment is static the potential for adaptation is less necessary; but more vulnerable to change. Hence the Moa and the Dodo.
Yep, I understand you need variety in order for there to be traits that promote survival and reproduction in populations. I wasn't challenging that. My point was that we are existential creatures, unlike most other creatures. Being existential creatures means we have unique abilities- such as reflecting on why we do anything in the first place..why we exist..what's the point of it all. I'm explaining that there is a structural futility or emptiness behind all pursuits. We (as individuals) survive to survive to survive, doing repetitious or habitual routines- all within a cultural/linguistic, historically contingent, socioeconomic milieu. But we also do non-survival but related activities dealing with how comfortable we want to be (based on cultural expectations)- so we clean the house, fix the drain, wash the dishes, get the oil changed, etc. Finally, much our "free" time (non work or maintenance related) is to flee the eternal emptiness of the mental state of boredom. So, we flee it by trying to entertain ourselves with goal-driven activities- in other words, giving ourselves something to achieve. Sometimes our goal-driven entertainments lead to flow states which is a complete absorption in an activity as though time is irrelevant while we are engaged.
What other creatures would you include here?
It seem to me that "existential" as a adjective is not adequate to the idea you are trying to convey.
It seems to me the bolded concepts don't jive with each other. As I've experienced, "flow states" offer a sort of mystical timeless transcendence that give profound meaning and fullness.
I believe so.. WE are the only existential creatures.. Perhaps aliens on other planets too:)?
I purposely put that in there hoping someone would try to put flow states on a pedestal. Flow states don't make up for the lack of existence. Flow states are another avenue for lack actually. Then people miss the feeling of flow and chase it around for fleeting moments that fade.
It seems they belong on a pedestal. We're talking about the experience of transcending time "as though time were irrelevant" -- all of the suffering irrelevant (or relevant depending how you look at it). Don't you think it possible to cultivate these flow states (less default lack) and make them a regularity in our lives?
You've never met my dog.
The problem is that we know the purpose, finding meaning, but we can get it.
By pedestal I mean that it is a justification for all else. It too suffers from all experiences hoped for. Often times experiences that aren't novel end with disappointment (too many of the same thing) and often times experiences are hard to achieve (the right circumstances have to be in play). If it was easy, and well-established, it would be had by all at a much higher rate. This is not the case. Therefore, it is suspect as something that can be achieved more than a fraction of the time. Much of life is stubbornly grinding, mundane, and fraught with anxieties, worries, and "stuff that just needs to be done". Much of the time is spent keeping oneself comfortable, falling into patterns that promote economic welfare (doing stuff at the job and paying bills and such), and keeping others at bay from disrupting one's own comfort.
I agree with all of this except for but a few points. But by placing these achievable flow states (which are in my opinion always novel) on a pedestal we balance out the purported asymmetric-structural suffering of existence. Transcendence is one of the answers to the questions of both meaning and justification.