"Happiness is an affective state that motivates us to engage in actions that are likely to lead to outcomes that would, on average, lead to increases in the likelihood of survival and/or reproduction. "
Quelle BS. Fatties on a strict diet and rigorous exercise program are never happy about it. Give me a few minutes and I could think of forty-three more examples.
I go with Hobbes and Locke in thinking that happiness aka utility is
1. Hedonistically, a state of satisfaction, when your immediate needs have been fulfilled
2. The engaging in activities that give pleasure such as reading, playing sport, time spent with people you care for
3. Awareness that you are progressing towards a worthwhile, predetermined goal, such as when the fatty stands on the scale and has lost weight.
Actions that are likely to improve our survival and reproductive chances are the subject of evolutionary biology. Most of the time we're not even aware that we're doing them.
The therapist who says that rich people are unhappy is obviously perpetrating selection bias. Try telling a starving mother with starving children that she is happier than a billionaire and she will reach for her gun.
Anecdotally when I met a male gynaecologist and expressed my envy, he said it had put him right off sex because all he saw all day was diseased vaginas.
>We can define happiness from that perspective. I’ll re-use here a definition proposed by Glenn Geher:
Happiness is an affective state that motivates us to engage in actions that are likely to lead to outcomes that would, on average, lead to increases in the likelihood of survival and/or reproduction.
Once understood as such, some intriguing features of happiness make sense.<
This view of happiness, which I believe is sound, is an absolutely crushing defeat for the happiness prospects of seniors, who are out of the reproduction game altogether, can’t enjoy any resources they’ve amassed due to habituation, and who have no future prospects due to a rapidly declining mind and body (not to mention near-term death).
For any younger folks who are amazed at nanna’s outward good humor despite her age, rest assured that she’s crying inside and would eagerly chew her own leg off to escape from the miserable bear trap of old age.
If grandparents have meaningful access to their offspring and the means to benefit them this is true. But it’s also worth noting that in modern western society, elderly parents are seen more often as a drain on their offspring’s prospects.
And if this is the primary silver lining, it speaks volumes about the prospects of happiness for seniors who can’t meaningfully contribute to their offspring’s prospects, not to mention all the seniors who have no children.
Doesn't your question collapse the distinction between the evolution of adaptive strategies, and their execution?
Granny is not directly pursuing reproduction, but then again, neither is her horny teenage grandson, who is executing on an evolved sex drive with his girlfriend, and then putting a condom on it.
For that matter, when granny is making dinner fo the grandkids, the fact that she is happy doing that has an obvious evo explanation in terms of inclusive fitness. She is, after all, helping a 25% copy of her own genes grow strong and successful.
Finally, we humans are weirdly flexible and symbolic, and the non-granny whose children didn't giver her grandkids can probably project a lot of granny emergy onto her cat or lapdog.
Full agree on the evolutionary perspective on what happiness is and how it basically works.
But I think this article underestimates how deeply the symbolic capacity of our minds can change the whole picture, for good or for bad. Think of how just a random thought about a hypothetical can send us into worry or despair, or alternatively, hope and elation. Think of how a human mind can slip into depression (or hypomania) for no discernible outer reason. Think of highly religious people, for whom God (loving, judging, or both) can be a stronger presence than anything physical.
Finally, there is pretty good evidence, from studying meditators and spiritual practitioners, that people can train themselves to find reliable joy in attending closely to their own momentary awareness. There are well-known stories (ex. Eckhart Tolle) of people slipping into a regime of what can only be described as persistent happiness.
I suppose that in deflationary evolutionary terms, all of these examples could be considered glitches of the basic mechanism described in the article...
"Happiness is an affective state that motivates us to engage in actions that are likely to lead to outcomes that would, on average, lead to increases in the likelihood of survival and/or reproduction. "
Quelle BS. Fatties on a strict diet and rigorous exercise program are never happy about it. Give me a few minutes and I could think of forty-three more examples.
I go with Hobbes and Locke in thinking that happiness aka utility is
1. Hedonistically, a state of satisfaction, when your immediate needs have been fulfilled
2. The engaging in activities that give pleasure such as reading, playing sport, time spent with people you care for
3. Awareness that you are progressing towards a worthwhile, predetermined goal, such as when the fatty stands on the scale and has lost weight.
Actions that are likely to improve our survival and reproductive chances are the subject of evolutionary biology. Most of the time we're not even aware that we're doing them.
The therapist who says that rich people are unhappy is obviously perpetrating selection bias. Try telling a starving mother with starving children that she is happier than a billionaire and she will reach for her gun.
Anecdotally when I met a male gynaecologist and expressed my envy, he said it had put him right off sex because all he saw all day was diseased vaginas.
>We can define happiness from that perspective. I’ll re-use here a definition proposed by Glenn Geher:
Happiness is an affective state that motivates us to engage in actions that are likely to lead to outcomes that would, on average, lead to increases in the likelihood of survival and/or reproduction.
Once understood as such, some intriguing features of happiness make sense.<
This view of happiness, which I believe is sound, is an absolutely crushing defeat for the happiness prospects of seniors, who are out of the reproduction game altogether, can’t enjoy any resources they’ve amassed due to habituation, and who have no future prospects due to a rapidly declining mind and body (not to mention near-term death).
For any younger folks who are amazed at nanna’s outward good humor despite her age, rest assured that she’s crying inside and would eagerly chew her own leg off to escape from the miserable bear trap of old age.
Grandmothers can still engage in actions that help their reproductive success, i.e. helping to care for their grandchildren
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_hypothesis
Good point.
If grandparents have meaningful access to their offspring and the means to benefit them this is true. But it’s also worth noting that in modern western society, elderly parents are seen more often as a drain on their offspring’s prospects.
And if this is the primary silver lining, it speaks volumes about the prospects of happiness for seniors who can’t meaningfully contribute to their offspring’s prospects, not to mention all the seniors who have no children.
Doesn't your question collapse the distinction between the evolution of adaptive strategies, and their execution?
Granny is not directly pursuing reproduction, but then again, neither is her horny teenage grandson, who is executing on an evolved sex drive with his girlfriend, and then putting a condom on it.
For that matter, when granny is making dinner fo the grandkids, the fact that she is happy doing that has an obvious evo explanation in terms of inclusive fitness. She is, after all, helping a 25% copy of her own genes grow strong and successful.
Finally, we humans are weirdly flexible and symbolic, and the non-granny whose children didn't giver her grandkids can probably project a lot of granny emergy onto her cat or lapdog.
The answer is "kin selection."
Full agree on the evolutionary perspective on what happiness is and how it basically works.
But I think this article underestimates how deeply the symbolic capacity of our minds can change the whole picture, for good or for bad. Think of how just a random thought about a hypothetical can send us into worry or despair, or alternatively, hope and elation. Think of how a human mind can slip into depression (or hypomania) for no discernible outer reason. Think of highly religious people, for whom God (loving, judging, or both) can be a stronger presence than anything physical.
Finally, there is pretty good evidence, from studying meditators and spiritual practitioners, that people can train themselves to find reliable joy in attending closely to their own momentary awareness. There are well-known stories (ex. Eckhart Tolle) of people slipping into a regime of what can only be described as persistent happiness.
I suppose that in deflationary evolutionary terms, all of these examples could be considered glitches of the basic mechanism described in the article...