Almost all discussion is liable to break down unless we define happiness.
However, on a gut-level, I think I know what is meant. I would ask this: if this is not a thought experiment, have you made a habit of experiencing this happiness? Ie. have you trained yourself to expect the happiness? If not, it might “simply” be your ingrained habits reasserting themselves, and the happiness/unhappiness difference not being great enough to jolt you back to happiness.
I think there can be several possible reasons for why people do not do the thing that they know will make them happy, and here the definition of happiness really does become crucial.
This is a fair point theoretically, but in practice I feel happy most of the days and extremely happy sometimes so it’s not like the thing is very far away. It’s not viscreally motivating even if it’s very close.
Almost all discussion is liable to break down unless we define happiness.
However, on a gut-level, I think I know what is meant. I would ask this: if this is not a thought experiment, have you made a habit of experiencing this happiness? Ie. have you trained yourself to expect the happiness? If not, it might “simply” be your ingrained habits reasserting themselves, and the happiness/unhappiness difference not being great enough to jolt you back to happiness.
I think there can be several possible reasons for why people do not do the thing that they know will make them happy, and here the definition of happiness really does become crucial.
This is a fair point theoretically, but in practice I feel happy most of the days and extremely happy sometimes so it’s not like the thing is very far away. It’s not viscreally motivating even if it’s very close.