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CuriousLord -> RE: What if: (7/5/2007 11:23:49 PM)
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In such a paradise, it'd be easy for there to be a drug, or machine, that would allow for constant and perfect happiness constantly and eternally.
Incase you were looking for something deep, that's it. Happiness is a side-effect of the learning process, the macroscopic view of many drivers and their relative fulfillment.
Also, I'd note, such a paradise would likely be something the average human, common, would object to.
Edit:
I'm tired, and, for a moment, forgot that people on these boards don't take my word as holy. Meh. Stupid alternating lives. Yes, I'm too tired to care about civilities at this moment. So, I guess I have to explain this one.
The brain. It's you. It's not that it has you in it. It -is- you. (Along with the nervous system and body. Hell, even the environment. But, for the moment, we'll keep it simple.)
Happiness. It's some chemical in the brain returning such and such a function. Such a function returning that could be done by nanobots (or picotech, if need be, in such a divine paradise).
People carry around this silly notion that such happiness would be transitory as such happy feelings on Earth tend to pass with time. One must come to understand that the brain erodes to constant stimulie, either in failing to perceive the stimuli to such a continued effect or/and learning mannerisms ignorant to such stimuli, even at lower levels. A machine in such a paradise could compensate for this effect, removing the transitory aspect of such happiness.
I would hope one would come to note the larger implications. The functions of happiness. Why we can't be happy 24/7. And, what we'd be like, if we were.
I'd encourage one to consider a boy on a video game all day long, sitting there, eyes affixed to the screen. Such a boy has found a source of happiness that trumps other sources in his economic, proper, considerations. Still, would one envy such a boy, even if happy? One may even come to critize the boy, leaving his body to apathy and neglecting his work. "He'd never make anything of himself", one might argue. But, in such a paradise, would anyone have reason to work? All would be provided, unless this is somehow determential to happiness, which, in truth, it isn't. We are simply phobic of such offers as they are determental to our own happiness through the experience of sloth bringing ill gains.
So tell me, friends: is happiness the ultimate goal of any life? The answer is, scientifically, yes- but it finds contradiction in conscious thought. An odd creature, one is.
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