They did ‘badly’ according to whom? An academic standard? What does that have to do with happiness? If the highest possible score was 10 (infinite happiness) and the lowest possible score was 0 (infinite sorrow), then anything above 5 would be, ON BALANCE, more happiness than sorrow. It’s not that complicated. — Possibility

So, you would be happy to get an F (0 - 59%) on your report card? :chin: It doesn't make sense, something's off, no?

For any two distinct members of a linear continuum, there exists a third member that is strictly between these (Peirce). The third member in this case is the relative position of the thinker - closer to ‘happiness’ than to ‘sorrow’, according to your data. — Possibility

First, how is the tertium quid closer to happiness?

Second, explain how my data proves your point? I don't see it, at all!

Third, expand and elaborate on triadism, it looks interesting. Also, before you dive into an exposition, can you also touch upon dualism. Do you know anything about advaita.

I can comprehend, obviously, that dualism is about two opposing cum complemenatary entities/forces. Is that all there is to dualism? If yes, I'm a little disappointed, it seems to be missing a critical quality viz. mono no aware. :yawn:

Either happiness is subjective or objective. No one, as per Wikipedia, wants to get hooked up to an experience machine. In other words... — Agent Smith

”Happiness” seems a bit too simple to describe the OP. And even if one talked about happiness, dividing it into subjective OR objective seems a bit simplistic too. We do have our own feelings and experiences, shared and polluted by the other, by all kind of puclic opinions and sentiments.

”Happiness” seems a bit too simple to describe the OP. And even if one talked about happiness, dividing it into subjective OR objective seems a bit simplistic too. We do have our own feelings and experiences, shared and polluted by the other, by all kind of puclic opinions and sentiments — Ansiktsburk

Where do you wanna start?

Well, it seems I got the wrong end of the stick. The world is, all things said, melancholic! It's all good guys & gals. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to imply we're thinking. My premises don't permit such an inference.

Is it possible that

1. If we're depressed, then we're thinking

Mind you, people who're suffering from immediate causes such as disease, hunger, poverty, marginalization, don't count.

Hey, that means I'm right after all. The top 10 happiest countries (all European) shouldn't exist. They people of these nations should be sad as hell too.

Europeans are not thinking? The motherlode of global innovation and they're sleep walking.

Sorry for the flip-flop, building my case on the fly. It's clear enough for those with a modicum of horse sense.

People think they want ‘happiness’ but really they mean that they want to do something ‘meaningful’. The sense of satisfaction gained from struggling, failing and overcoming (even for months/years) is far better than a dull slovenly ‘happiness’.

The journey and all that. Common phrase likely because it is true that we enjoy the act of doing something more than the actual achievement.

People think they want ‘happiness’ but really they mean that they want to do something ‘meaningful’. The sense of satisfaction gained from struggling, failing and overcoming (even for months/years) is far better than a dull slovenly ‘happiness’.

The journey and all that. Common phrase likely because it is true that we enjoy the act of doing something more than the actual achievement. — I like sushi

Darwinian take: only things that are good for evolutionary success (basically reproduction) would have found their into our brain reward system. Ergo, if you get a kick out of x, x is good for sex! :joke: I don't see how locking yourself up in a room for 7 consecutive days playing world of warcraft makes for a great sex life? Something went wrong as my browser keeps telling me every now and then.

I think it would be better to say that instead of not thinking the people are wilfully ignorant

I think it would be better to say that instead of not thinking the people are wilfully ignorant — I love Chom-choms

bit simplistic too. — Ansiktsburk

I hear ya!

It's clear enough for those with a modicum of horse sense. — Agent Smith

Keep that horse running wildly my love! Let's ride the untamed horse of reality without a damned saddle, without the bridles! Jippiyajay!

Update

In general, should people be happy or sad, given how the world is and how it works? If the world is predominantly evil, then people should be in the grips of depression most if not all the time. In case there's more good than evil, we can expect the majority to be upbeat about life.

Are people actually happy or sad? I tried to look for data
and what I found was that the average happiness score for the world is 5.53 out of a maximum of 10. If the world were a class of pupils, the average grade for the class is an F (0 - 59%). That looks bad/black.

Conclusion: There's more evil than good in the world. That explains the low mean happiness score of 5.53.

There are multiple issues with my analysis if we could call it that. As @Ansiktsburk was good enough to bring to my attention: it maybe simplistic ( :down: ) rather than simple ( :up: ).

Keep that horse running wildly my love! Let's ride the untamed horse of reality without a damned saddle, without the bridles! Jippiyajay! — EugeneW

:lol:

So, you would be happy to get an F (0 - 59%) on your report card? :chin: It doesn't make sense, something's off, no? — Agent Smith

Oh my god! - WHAT report card? This is apologistic nonsense. Where I come from anything above 50% is considered a ‘pass’, but that’s honestly beside the point...

First, how is the tertium quid closer to happiness?

Second, explain how my data proves your point? I don't see it, at all! — Agent Smith

Every countably infinite subset of the continuum that has an upper bound (happiness = 10) has a least upper bound (sorrow = 0). Which would make a potential midway point (neither happiness nor sorrow) = 5. A score of 5.53 would therefore be positioned closer to happiness than to sorrow. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this...

Third, expand and elaborate on triadism, it looks interesting. Also, before you dive into an exposition, can you also touch upon dualism. Do you know anything about advaita.

I can comprehend, obviously, that dualism is about two opposing cum complemenatary entities/forces. Is that all there is to dualism? If yes, I'm a little disappointed, it seems to be missing a critical quality viz. mono no aware. :yawn: — Agent Smith

Dualism is a belief/doctrine that reality is fundamentally composed of two parts. It is missing a critical quality, rendering it essentially unverifiable. You can reduce reality to pretty much any two concepts as fundamentally ‘opposing’, and there is no way to confirm or deny their accuracy as such.

Advaita, or non-dualism, basically recognises one of them as illusion, or a limited aspect of what is essentially a monism.

Triadism is a way of thinking about reality in terms of stable, self-critical systems, inclusive of the embodied thinker, who recognises himself as an interacting aspect of reality. The ideal triadic system works towards a perfect symmetry, enabling the thinker to embody any of the three aspects in order to grasp a complete and unlimited understanding of the system as a whole.

Ergo,

3. We're not (really) thinking. — Agent Smith

(3) should be "we're not really thinking about the world."

(3) should be "we're not really thinking about the world." — RogueAI

:up: Another qualification that I failed to make. So, my thesis is improving, won't you say? With help from you all of course. Arigato gozaimus.

Oh my god! - WHAT report card? This is apologistic nonsense. Where I come from anything above 50% is considered a ‘pass’, but that’s honestly beside the point... — Possibility

Yeah, I was wondering about that, but it's not my idea. Visit the Wikipedia page on US students' grading system. Are you saying the US educational board/council/committee is spouting "apologistic (?) nonsense"? Can you explain why it's "apologisitc (?) nonsense"? Remember there's a range (0 - 59%) that's "awarded" F.

Every countably infinite subset of the continuum that has an upper bound (happiness = 10) has a least upper bound (sorrow = 0). Which would make a potential midway point (neither happiness nor sorrow) = 5. A score of 5.53 would therefore be positioned closer to happiness than to sorrow. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this... — Possibility

That's an excellent observation. 5.53 is closer to 10 than 0 (it's past the midpoint 5). However this average happiness score looks to be the median and not the mean. Half of the world's countries score less than 5.53 and you'll have to remember that most of them are highly populous nations (Asia & Africa). In terms of actual numbers that could mean two-thirds of the world i.e. approx. 5.3 billion people out of a total of 8 billion are having a hard time. Evil > Good.



1. Dualism: Hot - Cold [extrema]

2. Triadism: Hot - x - Cold. What's the x? Lukewarm/tepid? Isn't lukewarm/tepid just hot interacting with cold and reaching an equilibrium point? The lukewarm, like dissipated heat or 0 between + and - does nothing. The third state in triadism is static, inert, noble! Tepid water isn't a "force" for lack of a better term, it's, to put it colorfully, a dead battery with a potential of 0 volts!

Every countably infinite subset of the continuum that has an upper bound (happiness = 10) has a least upper bound (sorrow = 0). Which would make a potential midway point (neither happiness nor sorrow) = 5. A score of 5.53 would therefore be positioned closer to happiness than to sorrow. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this... — Possibility

The number 5.53 points to virtual people. Actual people have values above and below 5. A relative very high number of people have a lucky number below 5. Which means, they are unhappy. If you asked the luck question 10 000 years ago, when paradise was still paradise, a relative small number of people would have a luck value below 5. If they even understood the question. They were just happy.

The average happiness score is 5.53 out of a maximum of 10 (see here). That's like scoring just a little above 50% in an an exam. That's an F in academics.Fail! — Agent Smith

Do we take a happiness poll seriously? That aside, looks like this one tells us happiness comes from a solid welfare safety net and political stability. It doesn't seem to be about reflecting on evil or facts in the world. It seems to say that happiness is local and politically determined.

You are missing the importance of interpretation of events in the development of happiness or melancholy. As the cognitive behavioral thinkers suggest it is not experiences themselves which lead to emotional states but the thoughts which a person has about the experiences.

This can be habitual and cumulative, resulting in a particular state of mind and there is the possibility of reframing events in order to change emotions, but it may not be easy to achieve, especially the biological manifestation of unhappiness and sadness into clinical depression. It is this complexity which leads to a need for a combination of medication and other therapeutic options.

Do we take a happiness poll seriously? That aside, looks like this one tells us happiness comes from a solid welfare safety net and political stability. It doesn't seem to be about reflecting on evil or facts in the world. It seems to say that happiness is local and politically determined — Tom Storm

How much do polls reflect the actual state of affairs? I guess there are many stages in a poll where mistakes can occur and the common ones have already been discovered and addressed. It's the errors that we're not aware of that can gum up the works. Here we're treading on the frontiers of statistics and study/survey design. I haven't the foggiest as to how we should go about it. For now, let's just accept that, like in all things, there are limitations to polls and we will draw our conclusions cautiously, with great care.

I've read that Scandinavian countries (the happiest nations according to the polls) have a social welfare scheme that's the best in the world and add to that the political stability these European nations enjoy and we have a recipe for happiness. I'm not sure what works for Scandinavians will work for every other people. Will this model also function as effectively in say Africa or Asia? Your guess is as good as mine.

You are missing the importance of interpretation of events in the development of happiness or melancholy. As the cognitive behavioral thinkers suggest it is not experiences themselves which lead to emotional states but the thoughts which a person has about the experiences.

This can be habitual and cumulative, resulting in a particular state of mind and there is the possibility of reframing events in order to change emotions, but it may not be easy to achieve, especially the biological manifestation of unhappiness and sadness into clinical depression. It is this complexity which leads to a need for a combination of medication and other therapeutic options. — Jack Cummins

Indeed Jack Cummins, happiness does have a subjective component and we may be able to make ourselves happier just by recalibrating our attitude but I have a feeling this can't be done indefintely or in all situations. For example it doesn't look like we can maintain a cheerful mood in a war zone surrounded by death and destruction.

Also what of the correlation between objectively measurable parameters such as nutrition, health, political stability and overall well-being of people as found in the happiest countries?

Where do you wanna start? — Agent Smith

Good question. Probably somewhere in the reigion of un-happyness and in the region of meaning. Maslow territory.

Maslow territory. — Ansiktsburk

Although, prima facie, Maslow's hierarchy of needs makes complete sense - it jibes with our intuitions - I found out it has many critics. That said, the mistakes it supposedly makes doesn't seem to amount to a death blow if you catch my drift.

As regards the OP, all I can say at this moment is people who're suffering (unfulfilled needs in Maslow's world) simply don't have the time or resources to think (well) like, say, a well-paid professor of philosophy in a university somewhere.

It's a vicious cycle as I once pointed out: suffering $\to$ can't think $\to$ suffering $\to$ can't think...