Do people want to be happy?

When I eventually went online and discovered that even the greatest minds of history had trouble with this question, I was a little relieved that it wasn't just me.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that reality is something we define by our senses (which of course can be wrong), and that the only senses available to us are:

External Perceptions: the usual senses like sight, touch hearing, balance, whatever.

Internal Perceptions: our own thoughts and emotions and moods as fed back into the reasoning process. Of course, since there is this feedback in the human equation, many things can be circular in nature, where it's not always cause-effect - but rather cause-effect-cause-etc ad infinitum.

But since all of these senses can be in error, it would seem we cannot be certain (not in the mathematical sense) of reality. It is a belief like any other, which we probably have to subscribe to before we can build systems on that. But then I come to the logical fallacy: there are absolutely no absolutes. Which of course, seems paradoxical. I'm sure these are all beginners mistakes which Is why I need some help.

But yes, I am building a new worldview, and want it to be the best it can be (since I figure that would help me in life, although of course I may be wrong), and that's why I am here. At the moment I've got some things built up in my little worldview, but I've never had any official training in philosophy, so I am here to see if the field of philosophy has any ideas that I can use. I don't mean that to sound as conceited as it does, it's just why I believe I came here.

I realise that any of the questions I ask will most likely seem to be "newb questions" so sorry if anyone finds that annoying:

Do people want to be happy?

So by that token, you get to the point when you are stuck with a worldview which is ALL "best guesses:"
* There is no TRUE reality (it's linked with perceptions and faulty perceptions)
* There is no true "good" and true "evil" etc. . .

Do people want to be happy?

Indeed, and I'd say that generally, the way people seem to achieve happiness, is either through fulfilment of wants and needs (goal oriented), or through tricking that system: by kidding yourself that you have what you want or need so that you are happy. I seem to be good at the latter.

But you said generally, and although I agree: if being happy is a want, would that not imply it's impossible to want to be unhappy, since if you fulfill that want, and fulfillment of wants leads to happiness, it would be a paradox... and every train of thought I follow lately seems to lead to a paradox somewhere or other LOL. It's driving me nuts.

Do people want to be happy?

We could say that when things are balanced, there is happiness. We may have killed the next Hitler but we also enabled much greater. We can't keep hating and killing and expect happiness from it. That happiness that we all define in our own perception. When your check book is balanced it's happy and so are we. When the tires on our cars are balanced, our car is happy and our driving is experience is also. With balance comes happiness and scientifically, balance is a very important thing in all aspects of life.

There is also true good and evil. Balance could be good and imbalance could be evil.

Technically speaking there would be no evil or knowing of it if it weren't for mankind. Evil is not a presence in the world like a ghost or satan, Evil is mans separation from balance or source or God or his own thoughts. Evil is an action of humankind based on their perception of what reality is.

I think the most important aspect of achieving happiness is emotional control: If you can control your emotions, you can literally hardwire yourself to be happy all the time, and then even if your reasons for happiness in the world fall you will still be happy. Thats something im trying to develop

The dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of a philosopher is the statement that our senses can be in error. I find it hard to believe that anyone could accept that proposition at all.

The dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of a philosopher is the statement that our senses can be in error. I find it hard to believe that anyone could accept that proposition at all.

Everything we sense tells us the truth about our reality. For example, take the time-worn example of sticking a pencil in a glass of water: The stick appears bent, but it's really not. Does that mean that our sense were fooled? Not in the slightest. Because that perception of the stick being bent is a real result of a real reality: the refraction of light in water. If the stick appeared straight while under the water, then maybe our senses would be fooled, because they wouldn't pick up the refraction of light that we now know exists.

You guys might argue that if we saw the stick appear straight, then the reality would be that there is no refraction of light. But if that was the case, then the sense still wouldn't have been fooled.

and that's my point. It's not that are senses are decieved by some malevolent little gremlin that makes us see things without any cause; Rather, everything we see has a sensable reason for that perception, which we are able to figure out and exploit. If our senses were fooled, there would never be a framework of theoretical physics that allows us to exploit what we see. Science could not exist if our senses were ever decieved, or if it even was possible.

I know this flies in the face of a lot of traditional philosophy. Fine. Treat it with an open mind though. (and by open mind, I mean, try to find a flaw in it. NOT accept it unquestioningly. I know you won't do that. But don't make the mistake of thinking I want you to do that. )

I tried this quite successfully for quite some time back under my old "science is the truth" worldview: controlling emotions does have it's benefits, but also it's downsides. It's quite an strain to suppress some emotions and can lead to some problems with more emotional people, but yes, it's one way of living, and one I did find interesting and useful for a long time.

and that's my point. It's not that are senses are decieved by some malevolent little gremlin that makes us see things without any cause; Rather, everything we see has a sensable reason for that perception, which we are able to figure out and exploit. If our senses were fooled, there would never be a framework of theoretical physics that allows us to exploit what we see. Science could not exist if our senses were ever decieved, or if it even was possible.

The thing is, if our senses are being decieved by some malevolent little gremlin, they are also being made to see the sensable reasons for our perceptions. Aka: We can never be certain of that reality isnt going to explode and become something tottaly different in the next second, we can only believe the chances of that happening are extremelly low because it didnt did anywhere during our life.

The dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of a philosopher is the statement that our senses can be in error. I find it hard to believe that anyone could accept that proposition at all.

Everything we sense tells us the truth about our reality. For example, take the time-worn example of sticking a pencil in a glass of water: The stick appears bent, but it's really not. Does that mean that our sense were fooled? Not in the slightest. Because that perception of the stick being bent is a real result of a real reality: the refraction of light in water. If the stick appeared straight while under the water, then maybe our senses would be fooled, because they wouldn't pick up the refraction of light that we now know exists.

You guys might argue that if we saw the stick appear straight, then the reality would be that there is no refraction of light. But if that was the case, then the sense still wouldn't have been fooled.

I know this flies in the face of a lot of traditional philosophy. Fine. Treat it with an open mind though. (and by open mind, I mean, try to find a flaw in it. NOT accept it unquestioningly. I know you won't do that. But don't make the mistake of thinking I want you to do that. )

I know this flies in the face of a lot of traditional philosophy. Fine. Treat it with an open mind though. (and by open mind, I mean, try to find a flaw in it. NOT accept it unquestioningly. I know you won't do that. But don't make the mistake of thinking I want you to do that. )

I tried this quite successfully for quite some time back under my old "science is the truth" worldview: controlling emotions does have it's benefits, but also it's downsides. It's quite a strain to suppress some emotions and can lead to some problems with more emotional people, but yes, it's one way of living, and one I did find interesting and useful for a long time.

Hum, I dont quite understand... you mean you stoped? As I see it it is a skill that everone is constantly praticing, like calculating. Do you mean you started doing what you fell lik more rather than just what sounds rational?

'Conceivability' arguments....:whistling:

"Let us not pretend to doubt in our philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."

-CS Lewis

Not quite, like most things it's a balance, there's a whole spectrum between almost totally controlling emotions (for simplification, and to save me typing it out every time, we'll call this end of the spectrum "being Vulcan" like a Vulcan from Star Trek - you don't have to know the show to understand the analogy since I've explained what it means, but if you do it should help to understand what I mean) to the opposite end of the spectrum: allowing yourself to be very emotional. The way I used to be was much more towards the logical and controlled end of the spectrum than the average person (more like a Vulcan) but to be that way you obviously lose out on some things: humour for instance. And so now I am more like everyone else: I let some things slide more. . . I'm more forgiving, and less exacting, in many ways - but obviously I still like to strive to be controlled and responsible in some things. There's pro's and cons at either end of the spectrum.

My brain told my heart that this reality is pretty much surely a bunch of ilusions. My heart, who is brainless, heartly agreed.

My brain told my heart that this reality is pretty much surely a bunch of ilusions. My heart, who is brainless, heartly agreed.

I find it strange you supressed all emotions though. I only supress the bad ones (bad ones = any emotions that dont make me fell well, such as hate and fear), or were you trying to only supress the bad ones too and ended up supressing it all? I also find it strange you used to miss humor, because as far as I know seeing things from the humorous view point rather than the tragic view point is the main way of happiness hard-wiring

But, yeah, that made it clear.

Hehe, I like the sound of that. Very fanciful.

Hehe, of course, at first I thought the system would be good because I thought it would protect me from the bad emotions, but I soon discovered that my own good emotions could just as much be the cause of unhappiness as the bad ones, i.e. that surprising as it sounds, there aren't really "good" and "bad" emotions. For example, falling in love (happiness) can lead to more heartbreak than happiness. And of course, the opposite is also true: feeling angry about something bad in the world can lead you to take helpful action to correct it. And the truth is, I was in a lot of pain back then emotionally, and so I did my utmost to suppress them all. And as I say, to some extent it did solve many of my problems, but of course (like anything) being almost emotionless among emotional people came with it's own set of problems. These problems it creates are mainly just problems for other people, not problems for myself, for when you are suppressing emotions too much you are not as affected by other people's emotions, but a sensible being can still see other people can be hurt by your apparent lack of emotion, and I never want to hurt anyone, so that's part of the reason I gave up on that "way of thinking."

The problem with a brain like mine tho, that is seemingly very analytical, is sometimes if you turn that inwards, you don't like what it discovers about yourself LOL - you realise you were wrong in some way or another (as I said at the start of this thread), and nobody likes the realisation that they were wrong, except perhaps some rare kind of masochist?

Of course each answer brings up a plethora of further questions, but that's life eh? I suppose in trying "to come up with the best worldview in order to be a better or happier person" that I might have set myself an open-ended goal that I'll never totally fulfill, but the journey should be fun.