Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
woodfromeden.substack.com
Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#2I stopped reading when the author said the word "joy" can't be used as an adjective. What about "joyful" or "joyous"? And I know it's not exactly the same word but neither is "happy" and "happiness".
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#3I think "content" is the English word the author is looking for - the first definition I see on Google from Oxford is "in a state of peaceful happiness" which seems like the intended long-term meaning - "a state", not a moment, and "peaceful", not surprise-driven.
Beyond that, I'm a bit lost by where this is going - like the segue into confidence and building confidence by e.g. learning about roof building techniques if you were to build a house. What's the connection between that building a house - whether correctly or not - and the long term happiness?
It's suggested that we "emulate past evolutionary strategies" and "we need to win the confidence of the minds of our ancestors" but... what strategies and past-mind approvals, exactly? And how? Is it materialist/economic/Marxian, an alienation of labor thing? Something more cultural? Family?
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#4Happiness, like pain, is definitely a spectrum.
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#5Speaking of ancestors, I think it is unfortunate that so many are unaware of what they found to be true about happiness, and what happiness is, and what it isn't. I am not impressed by evolutionary psychology and its superficial and half-baked just-so stories. Biology and psychology can give us hints and signs about things which are then folded into any sound account of the human person, but it is just that: information that enters into a fuller account. Very often, we don't even have that. We have unsophisticated intellectual dilettantism and amateur dabbling.
We must first determine what happiness is before it makes sense to talk about how to achieve it. Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and others in the Western tradition have much to say about it [0]. They also have much to say about how to attain it. It make sense to start there.
[0] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-and-How-Not-to-Be...
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#6[deleted]
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#7My most unambiguously successful ancestor was the one who invented fire, or the one who got the hang of oxygen breathing. One expects their lives were brutishly unhappy.
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#8I sincerely hope that nobody assumes that because this is on the top of HN that this isn't batshit crazy garbage. HN is an echo chamber that can turn a logical mind into one that starts assuming every premise upvoted on here is acceptable. Don't fall into that trap.
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#9Speaking of ancestors, I think it is unfortunate that so many are unaware of what they found to be true about happiness, and what happiness is, and what it isn't. I am not impressed by evolutionary psychology and its superficial and half-baked just-so stories. Biology and psychology can give us hints and signs about things which are then folded into any sound account of the human person, but it is just that: informat…
Why does it make sense to start there?
Re: Happiness is a reward from our ancestors
#10I sincerely hope that nobody assumes that because this is on the top of HN that this isn't batshit crazy garbage. HN is an echo chamber that can turn a logical mind into one that starts assuming every premise upvoted on here is acceptable. Don't fall into that trap.
Can you elaborate on what you think is "batshit crazy garbage"? I'm not challenging the notion, I just think your post would have much more value if, instead of dragging HN's populace through the mud, you concentrated on specific points in the article that you think are prime examples of its impracticalities.