I’ve always been very unhappy with accepted philosophy. So I’ve gone off on my own and started at the beginning. Productive criticism appreciated.
Happiness
What is happiness? Two things.
- The perception that you are moving away from death in some respect.
- The reaffirmation of life. In other words seeing others people, animals, etc that are “moving away from death†or at least currently far from it, and making the leap to ASSOCIATING yourself with these others.
But it is essential to understand here is that the perception and/or the association is usually subconscious and often completely wrong and whether or not the thinking behind it is sound is completely irrelevant to the resulting happiness.
Examples of 1. (The perception that you are moving away from death in some respect.)
a. Directly avoiding physical death in the short term (eating, gaining strength, feeling physically better, sleeping, etc)
b. Doing something that will cause others to hold you in higher regard, thus making them more likely to do good things for you
c. Learning information that will make you more likely to survive, prosper, etc.
d. Special cases.
i. Humor: A special case in that you are momentarily TRULY forgetting about your worries. As such you greatly move away from death and increase happiness in the short term.
ii. Leaving your body: A special and complicated case that can be accomplished by many, many methods including drugs, a good imagination, “spiritualityâ€, etc. Leaving your body can mean entering someone elses but not necessarily. Compassion is also an example of “leaving your body†(and entering another’s) although it does not necessarily have anything to do with increasing happiness other than being an attempt at learning.
Examples of 2. (The reaffirmation of life and association jump.)
a. Learning information that suggests others are “happy,†etc and making the necessary association.
b. Improving the happiness of other people, animals, etc and then making the necessary association.
c. Anything that stimulates the senses can be a reaffirmation of life and all it’s complex order. For example: eating, having sex, etc, etc, etc. This could also be thought of as part of “Learning†except it is often information you actually already knew but which with you were “reaffirming†or comforting yourself. Comfort food for example. Sex with your wife for the billionth time, etc.
“Ethics”
What is the most moral action in a given situation? The action that leads to the greatest happiness averaged out over the entire existence of the organism in question.
This means:
- There is no such thing as true altruism. Whether you realize it or not, all actions are based on some sort of selfishness which give happiness by the means described in chapter one.
- In order to perform the most moral action you have to know how long you will exist.
- In order to perform the most moral action you have to know just about everything.
(And even if you know everything you can still completely blow it through “compassion†as I’ll go into in a second.)
So what is going on when you perform what you think is a altruistic action? Going back to chapter one you are either trying to “move away from death†or “reaffirm life.â€
Examples of moving away from death that apply here include:
1b. Doing something that will cause others to hold you in higher regard, thus making them more likely to do good things for you.
In this case this is with the understanding that we are probably talking about the extremely long term here. Which is to say that the longer you think you shall exist, the more likely you are to perform such an action to increase your happiness that you mistakenly identify as altruism.
1cii. Leaving your body (in order to enter another’s, otherwise called Compassion.)
Compassion originally arises out of an attempt to perform learning as described in 1c, 2a and 2c. But by leaving your body to learn you can get sidetracked in that you can’t be selfish very well or possibly much at all if you have left your body. As such your actions are now motivated in causing happiness to another. This isn’t true altruism though. Because your awareness isn’t IN you at the moment. Your awareness is somewhere over THERE while your physical self is over HERE performing selfish actions for your awareness over THERE.
Emotions and Humor
No, humor is not an emotion. Or at least it certainly is totally different than all other emotions. But what causes emotions? Why do some thoughts cause emotions and not others? How come more “careful thinking†is less likely to result in emotion?
Because of “Godâ€. Where God is defined as some thing, awareness, powerful force, etc. Excepting humor you cannot feel emotion without an awareness of this “Godâ€. This is the case whether you realize it or not and I’m sure you don’t nor will you likely ever.
More precisely this “God’ is actually a pantheism. When you feel hate you are sensing a force. When you cry you are sensing a different force. Love is more of the same. You rail against the Hate force that stands against you. You open up to the Cry force which watches over you. You present yourself to the Love force hoping for its approval. Of course these “forces†probably don’t actually exist. Humans probably just make them up. We can be quite creative. This leads to the heirarchy of “idiot atheistâ€, “spiritualist†and “intellectual atheistâ€. Where all three of course create these gods. But the idiot doesn’t even sense their presence as he interacts with them. The spiritualist doesn’t realize he created them. And the extremely rare “intellectual†realizes sadly that he/she did create them. Hopefully such intellectuals also realize that although believing would be intellectual dishonest, there is nothing wrong with hope.
So in order for a thought to result in emotion you must leave “mental room†left over for the possibility of sensing these forces. And so “hasty†or “quick†thoughts are far more likely to be filled with emotion. While those who think HARD are often cold and unemotional.
Humor is something else entirely. Humor has nothing to do with interacting with “God forces.†The key to understanding humor is understanding that every second of every day the mind is constantly on the lookout for things that could cause it harm. This is a very stressful occupation. But no matter how hard the mind tries, it constantly misses possible sources of harm. When a possible source of harm is brought to its awareness that the mind simply totally discounted, the mind momentarily “gives up.†The mind momentarily quits looking for possible sources of harm. Doing so results in a huge release of stress. Or the perception of a sudden great increase in happiness. (Where happiness is of course defined as moving away from death.) The resulting euphoria is laughter.
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