What is happiness?

[mhss1992]

Okay. From now on, then, if you feel that something needs clarification, ask. If we keep discussing like before, we'll end talking about completely different things and we will not move on.

Originally Posted by Cavernio

I haven't ignored your examples of models, things I'm largely not talking about are things I generally agree with you about. But for me, an example of a concept that I haven't really thought of for myself doesn't define it for me at all. Call me stupid however much you like, you're still not enlightening me. However, what I do think I understand is that, by definition, your 'models' MUST be centered around happiness. Therefore it IS impossible for me to give you a counterexample.

I didn't call you stupid.

I'll try to make myself clear:
Pick an object or thing that exists in reality: food, music, flowers, etc.

Each of these things has several different traits. We, as sentient beings, have models for each of these things, meaning that we have a certain expectation of what something of a certain kind should be like.

Nobody knows a perfect object of any kind, but everybody knows a certain quantity of each trait that composes an object which can be considered satisfactory. If some of these traits are lacking(e.g: tasteless food of any kind, not counting water) or excessive(e.g: very loud music, very salty or sweet food), then it isn't good.

Okay... You said that, by definition, these models are centered on good things. But what happens if we try to use the same logic for badness instead of goodness?

Let's pick an object which is usually considered bad: poop. Unlike the previous objects, we cannot think of a certain limited quantity of traits that define what "the most disgusting" poop should be like. The poop will not automatically turn good by making certain of it's traits lacking or excessive, it will become good only if it changes enough to fit in another model (like turning poop into a diamond).

Think of it like this: goodness is limited to a few "peaks" in the sea of possible combinations of traits something can have, and badness is everything below a certain "height" considered neutral, that is, the rest of the sea.

I think that telling you really isn't enough. You have to try and apply these thoughts to the things you see in your everyday life and see if it makes sense.

I also find it pretty annoying that you took my use of the word 'ugliness' to be literal in a paragraph where its synonym is clearly 'misery', and my pargraph really had nothing whatsoever pertaining to physical beauty, yet you grasped at it and then talked about it as if to show I was wrong about what ugliness is. Who's not listening to who now, really.

Sorry. It's just that the whole thing was very confusing. I was thinking of physical models when I answered, so the thing seemed incoherent for both sides.

I'm not addressing your examples that show that happiness can dictate unhappiness, because I agree. I know. But this by no means proves what I have a problem with, which is that happiness is always first and everything's always compared to it.

Let me try something else. IF models are always centered around happiness, then why does pain exist at all? If unhappiness can't exist without happiness, then why would we, as living beings who evolved into who we are, have separate feelings and emotions for pain? Why would we not solely be regulated with 'neutral' being the worst feeling, and then we'd be regulated solely using more and less happy? It seems very unlikely that if happiness were always the first thing we must feel, then we would never ever have bothered with pain in the first place, and we'd all just really be functioning around more and less happy.

Because the simple contrast between a less satisfactory situation and a more satisfactory one automatically generates suffering.
You cannot make a world containing just "good or neutral" or "bad or neutral". It's either just "neutral" or "good, neutral or bad".

It's like making a world containing only "bright or neutral", "big or neutral". No! Those are all relative concepts. If one side exists, the other one automatically does by contrast!

Also, the physical sensation related to pain would be neutral if comfort didn't exist. Like I've said before, the physical feeling considered painful is not necessarily unpleasant. I told you that it's even possible to neutralize it by ignoring the notion of comfort.

And I'm actually trying to prove that the negative feelings aren't separated from the good ones at all.

I said that it seemed like you must think we're in a constant state of comfort because you say that pain exists only because it deviates from comfort, but I still say that we can feel pain when it only deviates from neutral. Consider a person in solitary confinement who has reached a 'neutral' state (an example YOU first brought up), and then a rat bites them and it hurts. IF pain exists only when deviating from comfort, then your theory falls apart unless you change it by saying that a) say that that person was not actually in a neutral state at all, but rather in a state of comfort or b) physical pain is not always linked to happiness.
I suppose you might say something that at the exact moment of the bite, the person was neutral, but now that they are in pain, they yearn for that comfort of not being in pain. But still, even if you say that, the CAUSE of this change was the pain of the bite, not the yearning for not being in pain. The yearn happens AFTER the pain, and the model changes BECAUSE of the pain. It cannot be the otherway around, because then there is no catalyst, nothing to cause the change to happen in the first place. And if the pain is the cause, then it clearly MUST exist by itself, happiness not included.

Actually, it's more like this: if there is a person who, SOMEHOW, never felt any kind of satisfaction or comfort in it's life, it will not be able to suffer. I don't think this is possible unless if someone is born with a severe neurological problem.

People in solitary confinement for long periods still have a (very deteriorated) sense of comfort (they're not FEELING comfort, they just have an idea of what comfort feels like). They will most definitely suffer less from rat bites and mosquitos leeching their blood (seriously, I've read about things like this myself in a book about victims of the holocaust. Not entirely solitary, but still...). However, if you pick some spoiled rich kid who always lived in comfort and make a rat bite them, I guarantee you: the kid will care a lot more than the person in solitary confinement.

And lastly, you asked me for an example of perfect ugliness, and no, I can't give you one. But neither can you give me an example of perfect beauty, so I don't know where you were going with that.

I was trying to imply that which I mentioned earlier: even if we can't define perfection, there is still a small range of combinations that can be considered satisfactory, but there are no small ranges of combinations that can be considered dissatisfactory(only huge ones, because it's everything outside the small satisfactory ranges).

Originally Posted by bobeck2

Happiness is complete contentment and satisfaction. The actions one does to achieve this depends solely on the individual. It must be contrasted with "thrills" and "pleasure" which are more potent forms of positive energy.

Hmm...
What's the difference?