This is the single hardest question for me to answer, yet I am so intrigued to continue trying to put the pieces together:
What is the goal of mankind? What is the objective? What are we working towards? What goal can we set for ourselves to attain happiness?
I have realized that the only way to attain happiness is through security. When we feel secure about our surroundings, our environment, our life, and most importantly ourselves, then we attain happiness.
Happiness as a sensation is simply what is felt when stimulation is not accompanied by fear. Fear is really just synonymous with “impending non-existence” (i.e. death). When an organism is not self-aware of it’s own ability to die, then fear is really synonymous with “impending pain”. But pain is nothing more than a stimulation which requires a response. In itself, pain does not qualify as “suffering” until the application of intellect. When pain is applied to the intellect, it requires that it find a solution to avoiding and remedying pain. The way intellect is structured, it deems that there is a solution to everything, and when it can not find a solution then fear results.
Happiness as a qualitative emotion only began surfacing in life-forms that expressed parental/youth bonding. In animals with no bonding between parents and child, expressed happiness is not seen in a species (This is to the best of my knowledge, I might be mistaken, if so, please give me an example). This parental/youth bond that was created is then applied to a mate, and from this we determine that in order to achieve happiness we need to have love, or at very least a somewhat mutual life. Sociability is a necessity for happiness, or else psychosis and despair results.
When an organism becomes aware of death’s inevitably, then a fear results which can not be easily remedied. For early cultures, it was understood that the spirit not only flows through the individual, but through all things. When death results, a persons spirit does not cease to exist but it simply “flows” into something else, and perhaps this explanation is primordially inherent in the understanding of existence for early tribal humans. The concept of an ever-existing spiritual aether should then be enough to remedy the existential crisis. But then, the next step down on the road of suffering involves contemplation of our loneliness. If the said spiritual “aether” flows and exists through all things, then essentially this could be represented geometrically as a single continuous entity which we are all a part of. If the spirit is a single entity, then is it not alone? Hence, the next step in the road of suffering is the contemplation of loneliness. The idea is, that in a timeless frame of reference, we are all a part of a unified system. Does our conscious awareness continue after life? If it does, then we would still suffer after death by contemplating our isolation. If consciousness does not persist after death, then how is there any reason to justify existence? How does life hold value at all? One conclusion is, that consciousness in itself causes us suffering, but consciousness in itself causes pleasure. Therefore, consciousness is a necessity to attain happiness.
The mistake is that we have made the assumption that suffering is a necessity for pleasure. We made the mistake (and indeed Schopenhauer and Nietzsche made the mistake) to assume that the suffering in life outweighs the pleasure in life. This is not true. Pleasure can spring from mere curiosity being met with a positive result. However, does that not imply that it is mere chance which determines whether our lives will be dominated by happiness or suffering? It would seem that the only absolute way to achieve happiness is to drain it from something else. Luckily for us, we are not trapped in a perimeter of vampires and leeches sucking the happiness out of each other. The sun produces a continuous amount of energy. Physics shows us that time is not linear. Waves of probability can interact with other waves of probability at random, and illogical events are capable of happening at a subatomic level. All events operate with a completely random (and possibly infinite) number of variables. The only constant (albeit vague) force is that of gravity. Gravity is simply the tendency for matter to either be attracted to or repelled away from other matter. Because of this continuous upward-flow of energy, we can constantly harness a continued existence.
We are unable to think in a spectrum of logic, as our minds work by building upon evidence, or in other words our logic works in a black or white fashion, but the truth of the matter is that the variables involved in determining what is “pleasure” and “displeasure” do not form an integer value until we assign those variables an integer value. There is actually a wide assortment of “variables within variables”, and eventually a leap of “trust in certainty despite uncertainty” must be taken in order for our willpower to be applied to any decision. Complete “logic” collapses on both a mental level and a subatomic level, and faith is a necessity for the prolonged existence of mankind.
Optimism - The idea that “although displeasure will result in the future, so will pleasure”. In order for “pleasure” to be our one true goal, then we must look to pleasure as having a higher occurrence than displeasure, as our mind can fall victim to “self-fulfilling prophecy”. If we determine that something will turn out for the good, then the odds are slightly increased that they will. If we determine that something will turn out worse, then we have already accepted failure and our odds of experiencing displeasure will decrease.
We need to have faith and certainty in ourselves. We need identity, something to fall back on as “always being there” when we experience doubt.
Now, the question is “What will the end result look like?” when love, happiness, and overall satisfaction are the desires. What end-result should we be aiming for?
Well, in order to maintain our freedom of choice, any construction of a Utopian society must have restrictions on advertisement. Otherwise, deception will run rampant not only in the corporate world, but in personal relationships.
Technologically, this results in more efficient and enjoyable products, as “word of mouth” becomes a much more useful indicator of deffective/effective products.
I am not suggesting a restriction on vanity, only a restriction on the methods a producer will use to inform consumers of a product. Here are some things I think might need to be done:
Fallacies can not be used in an advertisement.
No Appeal to Instinctive Desires - When a tag-line or eye-catcher is only used to is irrelevant to the product - An example is a commercial that has women in it more than the actual product, as sexual attraction may inhibit the valid judgment of the consumer. An exception to this is food.
No Luring - targetting a consumer who is unaware that someone is trying to sell him a product - example is when an internet advertisement makes outrageous claims such as “you have won a new laptop”.
No Advertising a Defective Product
Advertisements for products that could be dangerous must be CLEARLY warned as dangerous
Really, I think all advertisements need to be “Good-will intended for mutual benefit of both the consumer and the producer”.
This would solve many things in society.