At the risk of sounding dull & dry it is my understanding that “happiness†is derived specifically from the achievement of ones values. As such it is of paramount importance to be clear on how you are developing your values. Unhappiness is not only the result of unachieved values but in the achievement of conflicting values. Lack of happiness can also be the result of improperly developed values in that they are impossible (or very improbable) to achieve.
I know the quote “happiness is a life well lived†is trite but I have found from experience that many pursue happiness a** backwards. By this I mean rather than focusing on putting in place the proper framework (by developing proper values/proper for you & in correspondence with reality) numerous people attempt to box & buy happiness. I don’t just mean this literally but also in a metaphoric sense.
Seems we would be a whole lot happier if we accepted that feelings are the “result†of our value system neither a separate entity nor the controller of our value structure.
What I’m trying to say is that the human mind developed slowly over time. We grew from a very basic system of thought that seems to have been driven by emotions only. Emotions like: Hunger pain, Thirst pain, Need to Procreate: the sexual urge and then the pleasure, the happiness of getting enough food for the day, then the joy of rest and sleep. These seem to be the things that drive most animals, so would have been apart of who we once where. These were motivations, albeit very simple motivates, for us to get up and do things. Without them we would have no aim or purpose. If it didn’t hurt when we were hungry we would forget to eat, or if we didn’t get the urge and the pleasure we wouldn’t want to go to the hassle of finding a mate and propagate the species. Other motivates like the Fight or Flight response, again a gut feeling. Should we stand our ground and fight, or is this opponent to great of an adversary? These simple emotions, vague as they were, were enough to initially keep us alive. A basic set of Fear, Sadness, and Happiness, a simple set that would be enough to keep us busy. These were a generic way to make us do things while we lacked the ability to create specific goals and ideas, which required Logic!
Then for some reason our brain evolved the ability to reason and think logically, yet this wasn’t an instantaneous leap. It happened over a gradual period of time and is still happening to this day. Personally I think this came from the fact that we had to work in groups and had to learn how to communicate effectively. Things like remembering where food was; seeing that bee’s made honey, etc. Using the rule of survival of the fittest, the one that would have advantage would be the ones that could coordinate well as a team with an ability to see relationships between different objects, things, and animals; with this selection humanity moved towards a species that could see links between items.
While emotions still played a very important role in everyday life, eventually the logical part of the brain grew and became so effective that it started to move the simpler emotions into the background, with a mind moving humanity towards logical development the simple feelings that once guided our every movement were of no practical use in that area (Logic), but they still guided us in our original day-to-day lives. Meaning we grew beyond emotions into the realm of logical ideas, in effect we entered a new world which emotion could never see, or properly understand. Because the logical brain was much more effective at supplying food, shelter and a mate, who would select their partner(s) based off their usefulness it became the fittest gene to have, so was selected.
Our mind is now so logical that with the correct training we can quieten the emotions that once held dominion over are every move. We can stop our anger by thinking through the situation, or not eating if we are trying to lose weight. Like I said in the previous post the logical brain can even fool the emotional brain by doing activities, for example, thrill-seeking. We can deliberately place ourselves in situations that will give us a direct emotional response, as the logical and emotional brain don’t communicate with each other effectively. But that said, for some people emotion is stronger then logic and reason.
So why are we happy, the same reason I would say we’re sad. It’s a by product of our evolution, when we needed guidance and direction but were yet still unable to reason out situations logically or when the process of logic was just to slow to keep us alive and we needed to know to run and to run fast! To me happiness comes from the old part of my mind that still has a large control over who I am, yet is still only a proportion of the totality that is called I. Because the logical mind can’t understand the emotional mind I think this is why we can never fully understand the reason we are happy or why we are necessarily sad at any particular moment in time. They speak different languages, yet at some level maybe independently both fight for control of our actions neither one able to fully dominate the other so end up creating the roller coaster ride in life, called, consciousness.
Now that I’ve mentioned Consciousness I might as well drop in my current ideas on this subject, as it’s all related.
The Spiritualists talk about the 3 stages of awakening: Awareness of Objects, then the awareness of Thoughts, and finally the awareness of the Thinker or I. The first things that the mind learned to perceive were external objects. As the brain got used to processing this information it got better at it, and a by-product of this was the mind became more complex. The mind doesn’t work in serial, thinking only one thought at a time, one after another. We think in parallel, thinking many thoughts at the same time. I believe it’s this that gives us are Consciousness.
At some point our logical mind that had evolved for the purpose of seeing relationships, noticed a new relationship, it was all the other thoughts that were going on inside the brain along side it. The brain evolved to be able to see it’s own thoughts, i.e. it gained the ability to watch it’s self, like the way we could watch objects in the real world. Now it could see the internal workings of it’s own thinking process. One thought might have been thinking about eating, while another, about ways to find food, and yet another thought, who’s job it is to always be monitoring everything for logical connections, accidentally stumbled or should I say got its wires crossed with the other thoughts inside the brain and with this suddenly became aware of the other thoughts. With that a cascading effect as the mind started to see more of it’s own thoughts. And a new pattern emerged from the chaos; we learned to see how the thought processes in are own mind worked and became self-aware. This gave the mind a new power over it’s process to think, it could re-evaluate it’s own ideas and see it’s self in a new relationship to the world. It knew it was thinking, again over time this ability proved to be a good one and became apart of all humans. So now we can hear are own internal monolog of ideas as we speak to ourselves in the silence of the mind, with only the minds eye perceiving and hearing what we are saying. Again it opened up a new world for us to explore in the search for survival. We awakened to the Thinker.
Ok, I’ll try to answer you to the best of my abilities. I do understand the need to question (investigate) everything.The problem that quickly arises is that when we pose ourselves questions like that, we soon begin turning around in circles, since those are the same questions that mankind have been asking itself for the longest time.
I would like to elaborate more,but i can’t possibly contribute with any new info,and i really would like to talk with anyone that can provide such.
Happiness as I see it is an indicator of how the balance of our life is at that moment, the same with each emotion.
I see the emotions as being tied in with Ego, needs and want’s.
In the case of happiness, maybe I have a desire, or want for a BMW. The instant I obtain this BMW I feel deleriously happy. I have achieved my goal.
How long does this happiness last?
Well only as long as my previous desire for a BMW is not replaced with the next desire or need. Hmm Maybe 2 seater softtop BMW? Then when I have that maybe a Rolls Royce? etc etc.
It is a cycle of artificial happiness.
Each of us has needs, those being food in our bellies, thirst quenched, a warm dry safe place to sleep and maybe affection and companionship.
Anything more than this is desire or want, it can’t be a need as we don’t need it to survive.
Happiness comes from not needing and then not wanting. It is a very subtle feeling, just as all true feelings are (In my experience, but you may disagree)
Most people alive today are caught in a perpetual cycle of one sort or another, whether it be material gain or extreme emotional experience like you get from danger (skydiving etc) or having that emotional buzz of constantly falling in love with different people.
The emotions felt perpetuate a need to feel them again.
How many of us can truly say we live in the here and now all the time. No thinking of the past, no thinking of the future. No putting yourself in a different position so to see a different view point. Wondering what if?
Each time we do these things, we become unaware of the here and now, the space and time we occupy. We become detatched from ourselves. Uncentred. Out of balance.
How many of us have truly been high on life? I mean high on just your mundane, day to day life? Not sk8teboarding high, not won the lottery high.
How many of us notice the subtleties of life? The small, seemingly insignificant things.
Happiness to me isn’t the ear splitting grin or the buzz in the head, the feeling of power or the feeling of satisfaction from helping others. Nor is it the present from a friend, or love of a good woman/man.
Many of these things can go toward the feeling or state of happiness.
But for me happiness is not needing, not wanting. A feeling everything is OK in my life. Not excellent, not awsome, but OK.
Like I said, happiness to me is an indicator to me that my life at that moment is balanced. I am centred. I need for nothing. My ego is in control.
Most of life is spent meetings other peoples demands. At work, at home, and for what? No, what really?
As long as I have food in my belly, my thirst is quenched, I have a warm safe place to sleep and maybe lucky enough to have effection and companionship I’m OK.
Others tell me and even try to show me that I would feel happier if I earnt more money, if I had the latest model car. If I got that promotion. If I reached the pinacle, the highest position in the world, a world leader, better still a world ruler. What then? A God?
Hi,Zen, My two cents i’ll spend right here.
Since the beggining of humanity, people search for that elusive feeling, lasting happiness. I agree with you that for the most part they are looking in the wrong places.
But these are simple minded people that have gotten either overcomed by banal attachments or are simply brainwashed by the Machine (remember Pink’s ’ The Wall’ ?). Still, we are social animals and we don’t like living as hermits in solitary caves.
Ghandi once said : ‘we must become the change we wish to see’,do you know what he meant by that ?
Great thinkers from Socrates to Khrishamurti and beyond had this very powerful message that proposed sharing knowledge and learn from everybody and everything, and since life is a ‘miracle’ in itself, then it becomes a tireless source for inspiration and excitment.
Maybe , in relation with your judgement of regular people,you are looking at the pessimistic side of things, perhaps side-tracking the fact that much compassion is needed if you are to understand and help anyone,which is, after all the purpose of both Philosophy and Budhism.(I assume you are into Zen)
Also, I would like to add that in this western societies,people in general are having a huge problem with stress,which in turn cause inner-confusion and relentless fears.
In that concept,you may ask,who is to blame for that,and I would tell you, my friend,that really doesn’t matter.As sentient human beings that we are we do have a responsability to our own Humanity.
I think what you have said is correct and I agree.
Sure most people look in the wrong places, but that is all part of the ‘search for the Grail’ lifestyle.
My point is why look outside ourselves for something that only lies within?
All of us are simple minded at times and we are all place meaning in everyday objects. Getting brainwashed by the machine is what society is about. Imagine if no one strove to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’. Society would grind to a halt with out the personal status competition that drives most of us forward.
True we are social animals and we don’t like living as hermits, but I feel the reason why so many people feel alienated and detatched from society is exactly becuase of this. Their mind set is formed from early on that it is good to be better than the next, to score one over their neighbour etc. When as a social creature they should be pulling for their group (human race?) as a whole.
Well I can’t be sure but the way I read it he meant that we can’t expect others to change unless we do so ourselves, practice what you preach, lead from the front etc. Or to go deeper if you want, to change something about yourself you must become what you want to be, re-invent yourself etc.
I am not very well read in anything let alone Philosophy, but I can see the benifit from sharing knowledge, whether it be good or bad, true or false knowledge, as long as you are armed with your own good judgement to descide for yourself which catagory the knowledge lies in. What’s the point in having good knowledge when you don’t know why it is good knowledge?
‘Life’ is all there is my friend
I’m a regular person, I am no better than anyone else. I don’t recall claiming anything different?
Looking at the pessemistic side? Well it’s all relative, some may see my views as pessimistic others may see them as very optimistic or enspiring, it all depends on where you stand when you read/hear them.
Indeed much compassion is needed to understand and help anyone. But much compassion is needed to understand that not all people are ready or indeed feel they need help. I purely state the way I see things, If it helps or makes things clearer for others all the good. I don’t claim my way is right and true or that it is the way it must be. But for me it is the best I have for now.
Yes I used to practice Bhuddism, while I learnt alot, I don’t consider myself a Bhuddist, although I do still try to practice alot of what it teaches.
Stress is a big problem in modern life and I’ve had my fair share of it. Maybe just a slight shift in mental position would ease stress slightly. Most people are hurt alot by stress becuase they face it’s cause head on.
In most battles the best way to deal with something is to side step and go at it from the side or even the rear. We can do this with our minds and stress aswell, take a step back re-adjust your mental view of a situation so you are not viewing it head on and use it’s energy to defeat it.
Most of my young life I battled against the odds, it took me along time of hitting my head against a brick wall (figuratively speaking) to realise that everything is mind over matter, and I mean everything. There is an interpretation of if you don’t mind it doesn’t matter, which while very helpful and has a lot of truth in it, is not the only interpretation.
Every action, creation, movement etc starts in the mind. Everything starts it’s life as thought. These thoughts manifest in our ‘real world’ as actions or objects. - The root of everything is thought. - It is the most powerful tool we have. - With it we can move mountains. - Mind over matter.
It just takes time to realise that you can change the way you think.
Who is the most admireable (who would you want to be like the most)
A road sweeper(<-insert anything here) who is happy with his lot in life. Happy is doing a job he is suited for. Taking pride in his work. Proud to be a ‘road sweeper’
Or a high flying buisness exec(<- insert anything here) who does what is expected of him/her. Unhappy with their life. Striving for the recognition and ecceptance of their peers/society. Not believing in what they do. Allways wanting more.
Judge yourself by your own beliefs and values, not by those others set for us. As long as your own values are true and just, I feel you will not go far wrong.
Responsablility to our own humanity? When our most powerful leaders show little or no responsiblity to our own humanity, how do you expect those of us leading a ‘normal’ life to act responsably to our own humanity.
I reckon the hardest thing in life is to be honest with yourself. To see yourself as you truely are, and not the ideal image of oneself that we all build so as to live with our own faults.
–
Basically, I’ve found my niche in life. I’ve found what makes me happy. I’ve found what I live for. I’ve found what makes me tick. Yep I’m a lucky guy. Very Lucky. - Just trying to pass on how I achieved all this. It may help others. On the other hand what works for me may not work for others but my knowledge is there for all to read.
Cool,it’s all good then…as long as you feel that way,who’s gonna argue with that ? Sounds like you made it !,lol
I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘bad’ knowledge, pehaps you meant wrong ‘info’.
And in the ‘Humanity’ subject, I meant, and I will quote what you said:
<<Basically, I’ve found my niche in life. I’ve found what makes me happy. I’ve found what I live for. I’ve found what makes me tick. Yep I’m a lucky guy. Very Lucky. - Just trying to pass on how I achieved all this. It may help others. On the other hand what works for me may not work for others but my knowledge is there for all to read.>>
well, there you have it…that’s what I meant by we have a responsability to Humanity.When you have it that good,staying home,safe, sound and sheltered (as an example only), should be the last thing one should do.
By becoming more aware of who we are and what we are,we’d need to share what we have,and help the needy. Nevermind the politicians or the executives ,we won’t find any compassion there whatsoever, neither we should compare or judge them for their acts;after all, they’ll have to fight their own demons ; pity them,'cause they’re swimming in a world of ignorance,no matter how many doctorates degrees they may have.
Peace,
Still
[quote=“MentulZen”]
Thanks for the reply still_mind.
I think what you have said is correct and I agree.
After thinking on what I have written I have realised that maybe it seems that I am saying we should not be competative. Also it may seem that I am pro communism.
Competativeness is good. In my physcological make up I am not one who competes with others, rather that I compete with myself and strive to be the better myself.
My oldest has a very competative nature and is obsessed with winning and being first. At first I tried to curtail this and say it was wrong but then realised I was wrong in doing this. Her competative nature is different to mine, thus my rules maybe would not suit her life.
Communism, as much as it sounds great on paper, all equal etc, it just doesn’t work in reality.
Democracy it seems to me, while far from being perfect is the best system the west has invented/discovered and suits the majority…
I don’t understand politics much, and make no claim that I hold the secrets to end all suffering. I have very little indeed that I am certain of, and it’s those little things that keep me going.
As far as making it. I’ve had alot of suffering in my early life (not saying it was in anyway worse than any one elses). My experiences were extreme. Maybe that is why I have turned toward experiencing the subtle things in life, staying home, safe, sound and sheltered.
It may not be good for another to live like that unless they had alot of extreme experience to reflect on?
Like I was saying, as far as making it, well I’ll let you know when it’s all over
Got to go, the wifes doing her nut 'cos the dinners ready…
Hahaha… yeah, when wife’s calling,we need to soldier on,lol
Hard experiences,bad memories , extreme hardships. I can relate to allthat in my own life and ways,having seen horrible things in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge years.
I learned to let it all go,barely skipping madness. I learned to let it behind me, since there was absolutely nothing I could do about it any longer short of adopting orphans that I couldn’t even afford.
Sometimes, the ghosts of the past could chase your" today" realities in their own sadistic playground and personally, I rather just send them straight to ‘hell’.
Besides, whatever damage was done is done.Like I said earlier, one needs to soldier on and basically take it as one more tool that we can use to become better men.
Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. It seems to me everyone I meet has a tale to tell given the chance.
I never did learn to let it all go, maybe that’s why I developed schizophrenia.
You are your past, would you be sending yourself to hell? I really do not know.
You seem to be undecided at the best course of action. Send them to Hell or use them as a tool to become better men.
Maybe you do both, send them to Hell, then with them safley at a distance examine them?
–
Over the past 12/13 years I have been piecing back together my ‘self’.
Sometimes it’s hard going, but that’s all relative of hard ships gone before.
It is painful to analyze what I would rather forget, but what would I learn from that?
There are many friends and aquantances of mine who have had it far worse than me, I also find myself analyzing their position and experiences in life also. There are of course the ‘Golden People’ who seem never to have suffered or even been aware of suffering. Maybe that is what they suffer?
I feel we learn little from the good things in life, apart from that it is good.
The lessons come from the bad things, to learn not to repeat it, or pass that behaviour on.
I choose to confront my demons, they didn’t kill me the first time and every time I confront them, they grow weaker in strength.
Anyway I babble and to some, seem like someone wrapped up in myself.
But that is the way I understand the world, through understanding myself.
Seneca once said : ‘we die many times in our lifetime’.
Do you know what he meant ?
And i understand you, you seem pretty balanced to me,what kind of Schizofrenia do you ‘think’ you have ?..I’m not very familiar with that, is it like hearing voices when noone’s there ?
…and yes,since we have no choice but to always have them, bad memories are just that, bad memories, no need to dwell on them any more than we have to,.
We could use our past and all it carries for our benefit and the benefit of others,and like you said,once you dare to confront your fears and demons they effectively get weaker.Well done.
Hmm well I have not heard that before, but I can relate to it.
In it’s simplest form I would say it describes the transition between one phase of our life to another, the old self dies, replaced by (hopefully) a new and improved self. But I’m sure futher study could reveal multiple deep meanings of that statement.
Thankyou, I feel that I am balanced, compared to how I have been in the past.
It has been a long haul to strengthen my mind to what it is now. I have spent many hours doing mental excercises involving concentration, forward planning, thought control and mind observance.
I quite understand why you wrote ‘think’ you have there.
I ‘think’ I have schizophrenia becuase that was the label stuck on me by the Phsyciatrists. More specifically, acute paranoid Schizophrenia.
It really is hard to get across the experience of mental Illness.
You can no more concieve what it is like to have a mental Illness than you can concieve what it is like to have the highest IQ on the planet (unless of course you do have the highest IQ on the planet )
But I will try to explain.
To me my world is ‘normal’. The things I hear and see, smell and feel or even am aware of (or hallucinate as the doctors would say) are just as real to me as any other thing that I may experience. That is the problem.
Either I really can see and hear, smell and feel and am aware of things that others can not experience, OR my mind creates these things of it’s own accord. To me it is all real and I can not distinguish between the two.
It was not until some years ago that it dawned on me not all people interact with the world the way I do.
Is it like hearing voices when no one is there?
Well at one point before I was admitted to hospital I kept hearing someone screaming for help. No matter where I went or what I did, I heard this female voice screaming for help.
I searched gardens, searched buildings I even got my friend to stop his car and let me search some fields…
Obviously I never found anyone. But it was quite tormenting.
Things have happened since then to lead me to a conclusion of why I was hearing these screams. It is personal and I don’t really want to go into it…yet.
So yes you could say it is like hearing voices when no one is there, but it is so much more than that. (I have written about different aspects in other posts I have made)
The paranioa is the worst bit. But I think that is to do with my ego. Which I have tried to dismantle and piece back together. a) to see how it works and b) to fix it.
It seems to have worked, but my wife still says that I way over react to stuff. I say I over react becuase I am aware of concequences of actions that others may not be aware of.
To explain how the paranoia feels…
Imagine how you feel watching a horror movie.
That feeling of suspense, that something is about to happen.
You go to the bathroom after watching the movie and you feel a tingling that someone is watching you, something is waiting for you…
Now imagine having that feeling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for weeks or even months on end. Not daring turn the lights out, not daring to go to sleep…
Having a feeling that something is just about to happen… all of the time…
It wears you down I can tell you.
Anyway, enough of that for now, for I could bore you all night with my theories, observations and ideas.
Just this last thing though. Mental Illness still holds alot of negativity in the eyes of the un enlightened.
I thank you for taking an interest.
If I were not hiding behind this monitor and had say met you in a pub, there is no way I would give the slightest hint that I suffered from a mental Illness let alone come right out and say it.
I hear it quite often in everyday situations, things like ‘Oh my God I’m going mad!’ or ‘you’re a right nutter’.
To have experienced true madness and hear these things I have a sense of what it must be like to be another minority that does not have the luxury of hiding thier ‘disability’.
Hey,MZ, thank you for your reply and for the info on your condition.Stay strong and always remember how lucky and blessed you actually are (but u know that already).
I don’t know about dismantling your ego and formatting it back.
I would get rid of it all togerher, to me, the ego of a person is one of the biggest problems to achieve liberation of the soul.
The greeks knew that well back in the days,the word personality (otherwise known as ego) comes from Persona, which means mask.
When on stage and for the benefits or their audience,to be better understood as well as seen from afar in the amphitheaters, they thought of using masks to personify their characters.
Most of us still use that technic today,lol
Hey Ashortt, from my experience your posts are never dull and dry. I find, often times, that when a person finds anothers posts to be dull or dry that it is more of a value judgement of themselves than of the other persons post. As Descartes once said…there is never something so boring that I cannot take something of value from it (summarized). People are usually dull and dry, excited only by violence and sex as the media has usually brainwashed them. The idea that happiness is derived from achieving ones values is quite a complex and interesting idea. Having said that, why don’t we investigate the matter further? I’ll start: What do you take ‘values’ to mean? I ask only because I want to make sure we are clear about the path we are about to take. I also want to be able to incorporate ALL experiences of happiness that I have seen or experienced myself into the tenet ‘value’. For example, if by ‘value’ we mean a persons own moral/ethical standing on issues, then we would have to find a way to explain situations in which people go against their ‘values’ but still feel happy. To give an example of this: A person may be totally against cheating for anyone, but may one day find themselves really sad/lonely and give themselves to a good friend or to someone they confide in instead of their significant other - especially when it is the significant other that is responsible for their sadness/loneliness. When I say ‘give themselves’ I mean for you to assume that they cheat.
Once we get clear on what we mean by ‘values’ we can direct our attention to the next important issue that you addressed: “As such it is of paramount importance to be clear on how you are developing your values.”
Ashortt stated:
I really liked the above paragraph, but I will save my comments till we get clear on the definition of values.
Ashortt stated:
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I think I spoke about this in one of the earlier posts in regard to people confusing happiness that is derived from their fulfilling something that makes them happy and happiness that is derived from an object/location/person. For example, you may meet someone who loves to mountain climb, let’s assume you too love to mountain climb, the two of you go moutain climbing together a few times after the first time you meet. Having done more mountain climbing then actually getting to know the person, you find yourself bonding with the person and begin to think of them as a good, if not ‘best’, friend. Let’s also assume that you then begin to spend time bonding with the person, getting to know them, and you find out that they are actually not a good person at all - many (though not all) people will overlook this finding and focus their thoughts and memories of that person to mountain climbing instead of who that person truly is. Notice that this example can be relayed not only to relationships but to friendships as well. Sometimes people are so lonely that they just enjoy being with another person, when they find out that they are a bad person they continue to spend time with them because they are convinced that it is the person that makes them feel good, when really, it was just that their need of being with someone was being fulfilled.
Ashortt stated:
Although I am still not completely sure what you mean by ‘value’ I feel I understand and accept the above.
Pax Vitae,
I am in total agreeance with your entire first paragraph. The only one thing I tend to hesitate on, though I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with it, is that our goals (other than the primitive ones) require logic. The key word here being ‘require’. I also wonder exactly how you mean or are intending to use the word ‘logic’, since it could be argued that the primitive emotions were actually quite logical. It is logical that our bodies ache when they are hungry because they require it to survive, it is logical that as a species we would find it enjoyable and make an effort to procreate otherwise we would have ceased being around long ago. And so on, but I intuitively understand that you mean something more complex than this, hence I would ask that you clarify for me as well as you can, what you mean by ‘logic’ in reference to our current context.
Furthermore, I’m not sure how much you know about logic. But one of the greatest logicians, Bertrand Russell, said that logic is fake. Not only that, but it has been shown that certainty cannot be reached in math (according to Godel). I agree with both only for the reason that they are abstractions and fail to relate to reality in it’s entirety. This is not to say that I don’t think we should be using logic or math, on the contrary, I think logic and math are the best systems we have come up with so far for understanding our reality - which is to say that until we come up with a better one we should continue using them. But there is another meaning behind it aswell, too often people are convinced that reality and especially minds are logic/math machines that work on principles and heuristics (methods) that can be discovered, understood, possessed, and mastered. If people understood that math doesn’t give us certainty, if people understood that logic has limits, and that both math and logic as abstractions always have been and continue to be just that…abstractions, then we would have a society with minds much more open to innovating our mathematical and logical concepts in order to better them. So far, it appears we will have to wait a couple of decades or more until the next Plato, Newton, or Einstein comes by.
Pax stated:
I’m not sure what you mean here, could you elaborate?
Pax stated:
Interesting. I tend to agree with you that happiness, in fact all emotions, are a byproduct of our evolution. I also found it interesting that you said logic is slow, or atleast slower than us acting on emotion. This makes it appear that emotion is like instinct, with which I’m not sure I agree. The people who lack the most emotions, arguably those who are clinically depressed, still jump and get scared when you sneak up on them and scare them. When you slip and fall you instinctively put your arms into the direction where you are about to fall, I would not say it is emotion that led you to do it. Hence, it would appear that instinct is the fastest, emotions are something different from instinct and are a little slower, while logic or reason are something different from the previous two and are even slower than emotions.
Pax stated:
Pax Vitae stated:
What exactly do you mean when you say the logical mind cannot understand the emotional mind? Are there two minds we each have?
When someone smacks you in the face and you get angry, do you not understand that you are upset because they hurt you? When you having sex and reach that unmistakable climactic ecstacy is your logical mind failing to understand why you are having that feeling? As you can see we understand situations in which we feel these emotions, but what I am after is a general understanding of why we are happy, not the biological chemistry going on when we are happy, but what exactly is it in general, the overriding theme, that makes us happy. Not just happiness when you win in battle, not just the happiness when you finally get the girl/guy of your dreams, not just when you are successful, but what is it that is inherent in all of these situations?
Pax Vitae stated:
I agree that the mind works as a parallel system, but I don’t agree that consciousness does. Can you consciously think of two things completely apart from each other? What I mean is, can you think of an apple as well as an orange without thinking of them beside each other or within close proximity? Yes you can think of them as if they were on a table far away from you so that you could see them both at the same time, but imagine them separately. Or another test, first think of the apple, but think of its intricate parts, in your mind zoom in to see the surface of the apple and the scrapes and dents in it, the pores, the little dots, imagine the these little parts and try to zoom out of the apple while keeping the little details in mind…you lose the little details. The minute you think of one of the details you are no longer seeing the overview of the apple but you are zoomed back in and then zoomed back out again as you try to see the overview of the apple. Now imagine trying to think of both an apple and an orange beside each other with all their details. My point here is that you are only consciously thinking of anyting that can be seen as a two-dimensional object. If I tell you to think of an apple and an orange, you may tell me that you are having two different thoughts at the same time, but really you are having the same or similar thought if you were looking at an apple and an orange beside each other with your eyes. One picture…one thought.
Pax Vitae stated:
Although I wish not to argue that the mind/brain is like a computer, I do think it might be similar in the following respect - a computer appears to be doing many things at once, when really it is only doing one thing at a time (the fetch-decode-execute process of the CPU). Doesn’t it sound more like when you think of eating it is one thought, then you think of how to get the food, and so on?
Pax stated:
Very interesting, I will have to chew on this one a little longer.
Yes I had come across Nash before on a documentary on the mind. Unfortunately his son, also very gifted, has Schizophrenia aswell. I think I am right in saying, where one parent has Schizophrenia, any offspring have a 50% chance of developing it aswell. With both parents suffering from it, the chance goes up considerably. Yet it is still not known exactly what causes it. While obvious it must be heriditary, that is not the whole story…
I think I am going to buy his biography, mainly to find out more about his delusional thinking. What exactly were his ‘mad’ theories? They are hinted at in the article but go into no detail.
While I can not claim to be a genius in any way, I am familiar with Nash’s living on an Ultralogical plane and breathing air to rare in relation to Genius and later madness.
I am fascinated by way out theories that seem completely ‘mad’.
Alot of sound scientific theory of present was once thought of as ‘madness’ and way to farfetched. Usually we find, the origionator of the theory was persecuted in one way or another.
To bring about big changes is good, but prepare to suffer for it.
Iv’e said it before and I’ll say it again. Everything starts as thought.
I wonder about sci-fi programs such as Star-Trek etc. The way they seem to predict the future technology.
Is it that the creators glimpse the future or that the creators sow the seed of the future through their ideas.
For the scientist to develop warp drive, the concept of warp drive has to be introduced, no matter how un believable. Better still, how about the grass pulp engine? for example. Completly off the top of my head, but it may just trigger someone to thinking of how to use mushed up grass as a fuel etc, then develop it. Think of all the ideas people have ever had and I bet a very low percentage have ever been passed on to another human mind. They are either to ‘mad’ or seem so mind numbingly obvious to pass on.
Gadfly and Pax are discussing whether the brain can have multiple thoughts at once. The way I see it, any thought occuring in the mind that we are concious of has the bonus of the subconcious mind pulling every single last bit of information that links with the origional thought, and ‘thinks’ on any links there may be.
This is why we have sudden dawnings or realization, and we grasp a whole new concept in an instant, where before there was not even a recognition of that concept existing.
This is where Schizophrenia comes in. In my experience, when thinking of a subject conciously, the subconcious of a brain suffering a Scizophrenic episode pulls together all the relavant information associated with the origional thought, but maybe also pulls in irrelivant info aswell. It then seems to make totally awsome links between two bits of information, that to the ‘normal’ person seem totally crazy and Ill-logical.
The way Isee it is that either these ‘jumps’ to link two subjects are all relavent and it is just we lack the intelectual capacity to understand them conciously as our brains have not sufficiently evolved. OR they are just short cuircits. But even then with short cuircits, there is a chance that one of these ‘leaps of faith’ may just provide the answer to the next big question. As in the microchips that wire themselves up and design the next generation of chips. 99% of these chips don’t work, but the 1% that do go onto design the next generation, of which 1% work. It is at the stage now, where the engineers just don’t understand how the latest generation of self made chips work. They are just to wierd.
Which leads me back to Nash’s delusional ideas, just maybe there is an element of truth in them. With a brain as powerful as his, the delusions must be pretty awsome!
Yes they are, and the way I see it, it’s from them that we developed the logical part of the mind. The ability to “see how things relate†is Logic. True some Emotions are logical; though this is because we can understand them in a logical way, i.e. see how it relates to the world or the object of the emotion. But when we don’t understand them we say that they are illogical, which doesn’t mean that they are some how wrong, just we can’t understand them with the logical part of the mind.
True, like I’ve just said, “See how things relate.†But like you’ve noticed there is more to it then just that, I left out about Abstraction, and the Abstraction of Ideas. I also believe that Abstraction is one of the primary roots of creativity. An example: Pre-man sees a tree falling on an animal. He then sees that the animal is trapped and easy to kill. So he thinks to himself, “If I could get trees to fall on animals that I want to eat I wouldn’t have to hunt as much.†This of course would be a basic logical idea, with abstraction being the creation of a special “tree falling thing†to trap animals. Pre-man then invests a primitive trapping device, based off the events of watching an animal getting trapped by chance.
Logic here, to me, is the ability to see something and see what part of the event is the cause of the effect. So cause and effect being apart of nature caused the mind to develop along those lines (i.e. seeing the relationship between cause and effect), it was there constant simulation of the mind which caused us to grow in understanding of external events, then once they were mastered, we then went back into ourselves and saw new causes and effects in the mind.
I agree, but logic to me is a tool for survival and Maths to me is again just like you’ve pointed out an abstraction of the world, to try and simplify it. Then Quantum Mechanics came along and ruined the party, well for the moment. Maybe the next step in Humanities evolution and its use of logic will come from the ability learned from understanding the Quantum world?
It’s the stimuli of the past that created the people of today, through the process of evolution. Likewise, it’s the stimuli of this very moment that is creating our yet unborn heirs. If we look very closely, we might just be able to see our future selves.
Logic can’t always understand why we are feeling a certain way, and Emotion can’t always understand the results of logical thought, i.e. I know that when a close loved one dies that being sad isn’t going to help them, or me, but yet I still feel sad. Logically I know this is pointless, but I’m still feeling this way, surely if the logical mind could talk to the emotional part better it would tell it to stop being sad and get on with life. While the logical mind is sitting there wondering while we’re still sad, as it’s pointless and counterproductive.
True, so do you think that instinct and reflex are the oldest part of the human mind? Along with the necessary functions to keep us living breeding. I see them, as being a part of life and death choices, so must be dealt with as quickly as possible.
While we only have one mind, it’s like a tree with one trunk and two branches. There are certain parts where logic and emotion can work together, as emotion to me is the forerunner to abstract logic. They are not holey separate; parts are also not linked, i.e. one doesn’t always have the ability to affect the other. But because logic is the child of emotion, the father doesn’t always listen to the son.
The knowledge that something “good†has been done or completed, nothing more! Happiness to me is akin to all other emotions; I enjoy happiness because it means that nothing needs to be done. While all other emotions are about doing something or doing something through the avoidance of something harmful. Happiness to me is a state of stillness (a need to do nothing). Talk to all the Buddhist monks, they’ll tell you all about happiness, as this is what meditation unlocks. The stillness of paradise, in paradise nothing ever needs to be done and we have no responsibilities.
No, because it’s logically impossible! And it’s logic that created the conscious mind, so it can’t correctly think illogical ideas. It’s like imagining that 2 is 1, it can’t be done with logic.
I agree, I see the conscious mind like a calculator. We only ever see what happens on the little screen. I press the ‘3’ key then the ‘+’, ‘2’ and finally equals. Seemingly out of nowhere pops ‘5’ onto the screen. While the screen didn’t show how it came up with the number 5 I know there are internal workings that are not important to the process so are hidden from me. I don’t care how the CPU of a calculator works or what process it did with all those 1’s & 0’ of its binary notation and how it converted it into a decimal number, or even how it but it onto the screen. I just take it for granted that 3+2 will give me an answer and that answer will be correct.
To me the conscious mind is all about labels and simple logic, other things happen at a deeper level. Logically it’s impossible to deal with two things at the same time in our conscious mind, our conscious is designed to deal with one thing at a time. We also can’t have two parts of the mind like this, as it would cause problems akin to Schizophrenia (a disorientated mind). Meaning, a form of the mind having two separate conscious parts trying to do the same job, so when it comes time to act they might have different ideas about what should be done, therefore having problems reconciling choices and confusing each other. This is what I mean when I say that the consciousness is a failsafe deceive for non-instinctive choices.
True, a single CPU can only do one thing at a time, but why must the brain be a single CPU. If you look at the direction that computers are heading, its multiple CPU’s or custom CPU’s for different tasks. One CPU does graphic, another the sound, and yet another the logic. I see the brain as a customised bank of CPU’s all running different tasks, some related, and other unrelated, but all are apart of the whole.
I would say that emotion created logic, and logic created consciousness. Consciousness now stands on top of a pyramid looking out around itself, while it requires everything below it to function it can never penetrate within. Yet it can still see what makes up the whole by looking at the outer walls.
Okay, but I think it would be quite productive and constructive if we could list the particular entities that are being balanced, or whatever it is that you imagine in our lives is being balanced out in a moment of happiness.
Furthermore, how do we make sense of this with examples such as sex? or getting a present? or being happy about a good mark on a test? These, to me, don’t seem easy to answer with a balancing act argument. I’m not disagreeing with you here, all I am saying is that we probably need to add something to your theory. Once again, all I am trying to do is come up with an over-arching theme present in all people in all moments of happiness that caused that happiness, I am not looking for things that are a product of that happiness.
MentulZen stated:
Okay, but how do we explain negative situations that make us happier later, or that build upon a happiness we know we will have? For instance, if I want to be a Marine I may nevertheless hate the training I go through. But this training will add to the happiness I will feel when I finally become a Marine (because I worked so hard for it). Along your example, if the person could just go out and buy the BMW anytime they wanted, they may not be as happy with it than they would be if they had to spend much time and effort in working for the money to purchase the BMW at which point they would be even happier because of all the effort. Lastly, your above statement implies that we are only capable of being emotional when we have achieved a need or a want. Yet often times we become very emotional exactly for the reason that our need or want hasn’t been met.
MentulZen stated:
Hmmm…I’m not sure I agree here. It would appear that you are saying that the minute happiness is gone there is, replaced in its place a desire or a need. But you seem to be saying more about greed, since your example is about desiring yet another vehicle. My point is, when I buy a BMW and am happy driving it, or having it, I do not stay perpetually happy until I grow bored of it and want another car. I may in reality, only spend a few minutes happy and my brain may advert its attention to my parents, friends, or what have you. Without looking at your examples, I would say the first statement is correct, but I don’t think it lends much support in coming to a closer understanding. To say that one is happy with something only as long as the next desire or need comes up, is doing a circle, since - the minute I cease to be happy I yet again need to be happy or desire to be happy. But this has said nothing about WHY we are happy.
MentulZen stated:
Now I’m really confused. Instead of there being millions of degrees of happiness, there is also another happiness called the artificial happiness? Where do we place this happiness within the construct of our life? Why is artificial happiness different from (normal) happiness? How is it artificial? Or did you mean that it’s happiness derived from artificial things? If so, isn’t it still happiness? Before we can move to figure out why we become happy, it appears we must first differentiate all the kinds of happiness we are familiar with. Please list them and their distinctions so that we can decipher which happiness it is that we wish to inquire together about.
Each of us has needs, those being food in our bellies, thirst quenched, a warm dry safe place to sleep and maybe affection and companionship.
Anything more than this is desire or want, it can’t be a need as we don’t need it to survive.
MentulZen stated:
How can we not need our needs? Isn’t that a contradiction by definition? It wouldn’t be a need in the first place if I could not need it. I can’t not need food, because without it I will die, same goes for thirst and sleep. I guess what you mean, and I am only guessing, is that we can only be happy when we have satisfied these needs - or - when we are well fed, rested, and have plenty of fluids. If that’s so, I would ask that you go through your memories and see if you have ever been happy while being hungry, atleast to the smallest degree…same goes for sleep and thirst.
MentulZen stated:
It’s funny, the above quote from you has be surfacing in my life just about everywhere I go. It’s becoming the topic of conversation everywhere I go. Kierkegaard speaks of how we cannot expect to be happy if we live in the here and now because it is temporary, aesthetic. While true happiness lies in things like marriage that art cannot capture and consist of already having that which you possess but having to be a certain way for a length of time. A good husband cannot be painted, nor photographed, nor drawn. Since a good husband is something that happens over time - the fact that he stays loyal to his wife forever, that he continues to treat her with respect, etc etc. Both the past and the future play important coercive roles upon our continued present life. I cannot imagine living in this moment without some kind of reference to the past and/or future. You would have no goals, there would be no point in anything. Since I act for something I want in the future, I act based on my past, etc. Nevertheless, I do think there is wisdom to your words in the sense of extremes. There are those who take their pasts and their future too seriously and to an extreme which leads their present life to suffer.
MentulZen asked:
Up until the age of 20 I was high on life almost all the time. Since then I can’t seem to get it back. I use to find wonder and amazement in the way trees sway, the veins on a leaf, a grass blade, the smell of the air, etc. Now, I don’t even remember who I am - but that’s another story.
Lets start be examining our preconcieved ideas on what happiness is.
From your various comments and observations I feel you see happiness as something that can be obtained, striven for, chased. I will even go as far as saying you view happiness as something almost physical you can touch.
Happiness to me is a state of being at a certain point in time. Certain conditions can create that state of being.
Hmm I would say it is very hard to list everything thing that has to be balanced, becuase it is ‘everything’ that has to be balanced. You have to be in harmony with your surroundings. No negative thoughts or feelings. In other words balanced.
Let us examing these feelings.
With sex would you not say you feel pleasured and maybe satisfied rather than happy?
With getting a present would you not say you felt glee rather than happiness. Maybe honoured at being worthy of a present etc.
A good mark on a test? Self satisfied. A boosted ego?
None of these would I consider creating a state of happiness, although in everyday life it is exactly the word we use.
Kind of like the Innuits and there multiple words for snow. To us, snow is snow is snow.
I think happiness is a very over used and misused word.
‘may’ being a good word, you may hate the training becuase of your mental attitude. This is exactly what the training or for, to adjust your mental attitude!
I’m sure this would give you alot of satisfaction and a big sense of achievement. But what if your dog got run over the morning of graduation? Would you still feel the happiness? Would you still have the sense of achievement? Would you still feel satisfied?
A sense of being unbalanced would be present becuase of the loss of your dog that you still have to adjust to and ‘rebalance’ yourself.
Emotions as I see them are ‘indicators’ to imbalance. We may feel emotional when we lack something or something is wrong. BUT we also use emotion as a way to get back into balance. When the trouble is all over we feel a sense of relief as emotion washes over us, releasing the tension and going some way to restoring our balance.
Greed maybe. Depends on the reason for wanting that vehicle. Do we think we will be happier if we get the latest and best car, it shows we have loads of money? Pride? Arragance? I’ve got considerably more money than you…
Or do we think we will be happier by fulfilling just one more need? If only I can do such and such things will be ok. Desperation? Wish fullfillment? If I get what they have I will be as happy as they seem to appear?
If it is becuase you set yourself a personal target to achieve ownership of a certain vehicle (along the lines of achieving graduation from the Marines). It is a personal goal and it may contribute to your state of balance when it is achieved, (but why not while you are achieving it? can’t that give just as much ‘happiness’ ?)
It all depends on motive. There are many, some are more valid than others, but it all depends on where you are looking from.
But will any of these situations actually cause you to be, or even ‘make you’ truely happy?
I was talking of the way people convince themselves they feel happy or delude themselves that they ‘will feel happy if…’ (see above)
True happiness
everything else is NOT happiness but is called so through misunderstanding, lack of vocabulary, lack of awareness.
(btw- I thought I’d add here that these are just my opinions and are not necasseraly ‘true’ or indeed ‘fact’)
Psycologically, it doesn’t matter if the food/water is in our bellies or in our cupboards, it is still our needs met.
Remove the food/water one step, eg down the shop, and it has a dramatic change on the way we view it.
Once we have it we can mentally tick it off our ‘to do’ list.
So it iS possible to feel hungry or thirsty AND happy, as long as the need is met.
If on the other hand we are experiencing (and let us hope it is never so) real starvation and real dehydration (most people in the developed world only ever experience mild hunger or mild thirst as the solution to the problem is never very far away) I doubt that we would be able to be truely happy.
This is a core teaching of Bhuddism. To live in the here and now, to experience life ‘AS IT HAPPENS’ not experience what happened in the past or what may happen in the future.
It can be a hard concept to understand and an even harder concept to practice.
As of Kierkegaard, I have never heard of him, and not being able to be happy living in the here and now becuase it is temporary…well that is the whole point, to bring out the realization that everything is temporary.
The bhuddist demonstrate this through making their ‘sand paintings’. Hundreds of man hours our spent creating intricate pictures with minute detail out of coloured sand.
When the picture is finished it is displayed for a few days, then the sand is swept away and another one might be started.
Imagine something you may have spent hours and hours creating. Your immense pride at the achievment. Your dedication.
Then some one says ‘yeah that’s good’, sticks it in the trash and says ‘make another’.
What would that teach you?
true happiness lies in things like marriage?
I think you miss the point young sir!
true happiness lies within. It is found no where else…
Why should marrying the woman of your dreams make you happy? Why should having the ideal job make you happy? Why should having anything you desire happy?
If you do not posess happiness before these things, why should you after?
I feel you look in the wrong places…the grail my friend , the grail…
I bet before the age of 20 your mental attitude was different. You KNEW what it was about. You felt balanced, you lived in your own world. Saw the world your own way.
And around the age of 20 you started becoming aware of what society expected of you. You took notice of what society holds in high regard. They told you happiness lies in a good job, a good marriage, wealth and high standing in the community… echieve these things and you will be happy.
They told you how it is…and you believed them…
That’s the trouble my friend…Just don’t believe the hype
